ITIL: Little Acronym, Big Opportunity

Over the past few days, visitors to this site have been searching the term “ITIL” quite frequently. So I figured it was time to share some basic info about Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and its importance to the managed services movement.

ITIL isn’t a technology, a service or a tool. Rather, ITIL is a collection of best practices for IT activities and processes. Although it was developed about 20 years ago, ITIL only became widely implemented in the past decade. Managed service providers don’t sell ITIL; instead, they adhere to its practices and philosophies in a wide range of activities from project management, systems design, change management and service delivery. Think of it as a template for IT management and services.

During meetings last week in San Jose, MSP Alliance President Charles Weaver indicated that ITIL would become increasingly important to service providers that want to give customers peace of mind. And you’ll notice that Entuity, an MSP Alliance member, pitches the importance of ITIL in its own company description (see the bottom of this press release).