ITIL is a comprehensive and holistic approach to IT service management. The full list of ITIL terminology includes hundreds of terms, some of which are unique only to ITIL. Below we’ve listed those terms used most commonly in connection to ITIL.
ITIL
Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of best practices used by many IT service providers to deliver services to customers to meet their business needs within predicted cost and quality.
Service
Service is a means of delivering value to customers by achieving the desired results while working with given resources and timelines.
Service Level
A measure against which the Quality-of-Service Level Targets are determined.
Service Level Agreement
An agreement between service provider and customer. The SLA describes the IT Service, documents Service Level Targets and specifies the responsibilities of provider.
Service Strategy
Service Strategy means to develop a long-term implementation plan to advise service management. It enables a service provider to consistently outperform competitive alternatives over time, across business cycles, industry disruptions and changes in leadership.
Service Model
This the high-level description of the service and components required to deliver that service.
Service Portfolio
The set of services provided by the service provider.
Service Catalogue
The set of specific services being provided by service provider to a specific customer.
Customer Portfolio
A record of all customers of an IT service provider.
Demand Management
A critical process in service strategy, Demand Management helps to understand customer demand for services so that service providers can learn to meet those demands.
Pattern of Business Activity
An extremely important activity that involves learning how customers operate and what future requirements they might need.
Service Design
This provides a blueprint for services. It includes the design of new services as well as changes and improvements to existing ones.
Operational Level Agreement (OLA)
An agreement between IT service providers and another part of the same organization.
Service Level Report
This reports a service provider’s ability to deliver the agreed service quality.
Service Level Requirements
The requirements for a service from the client viewpoint, defining detailed service level targets.
Service Asset
A resource owned by a service provider that enables it to deliver service to the customer.
Configuration Item (CI)
A subset of service assets and have a direct impact on delivering services. For example servers, networks, and software have an impact on production.
Service Assets and Configuration Management (SACM)
This deals with maintaining an up-to-date and verified database of all assets and CIs which are also made available to other service management processes.
Event
Events are any occurrence that affects the delivery of IT service. Events are created by Configuration Item (CI) or the monitoring tools.
Incident
An incident is defined as any disruption in IT service.
Service Request
Service Request refers to any demand made by the users.
Known Error
An identified problem with a cause and solution. It is stored in the Known Error Database (KEDB) for future reference.