ITIL be a cold day

I'm frustrated. On several occasions in this space the subject of ITIL has come up. ITIL stands for "Information Technology Infrastructure Library" - a singularly uninformative name. ITIL purports to be a collection of industry best practices for managing the IT infrastructure - put simply a sort of instruction book for running IT operations. It's a great idea, even though there is no such thing as a best practi

I'm frustrated.

On several occasions in this space the subject of ITIL has come up.

ITIL stands for "Information Technology Infrastructure Library" - a singularly uninformative name. ITIL purports to be a collection of industry best practices for managing the IT infrastructure - put simply a sort of instruction book for running IT operations.

It's a great idea, even though there is no such thing as a best practice. (What a great opportunity for a tie-in to the centennial of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity: "Best," along with velocity, mass, and the rate of passage of time, can't be stated as an absolute, but only with reference to the observer's situation. Which is to say, there are no best practices, only practices that fit best.)

Back to the point: Lots of smart people think very highly of ITIL, even though it isn't entirely clear whether it's really a set of best practices or a process categorization scheme, listing the processes you have to figure out for yourself.

But what I haven't been able to find, even after quite a bit of digging, is a website that provides enough information about ITIL ... yes, free of charge ... so someone who's interested but not completely sold can learn something useful about the subject.

Even the most basic information is expensive. For example, I've run across a fifty-page saddle-stiched (for those who don't know publishing, that means a couple of staples hold it together) booklet which includes paid advertising, which sells for thirty bucks.

This diatribe is both a challenge and a request. The challenge is to ITIL and its advocates: Show your hand. You act too much like a secret society. Compare what's easily available for ITIL with what's easily found for, for example, the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (SEI's CMM for you TLA fans) for software development; or the Information Systems Audit and Control Association's (that would be ISACA) CobiT (which somehow or other stands for "Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology and actually provides a framework for performing IT audits) and you'll see what I mean.

The request: The Web is both wide and deep. It's entirely possible I'm being completely unfair, and if I'd just gone to page 87 of my most recent Google search I'd have found the perfect ITIL overview. If you've found such a wee beastie, please let me know and I'll pass it along to everyone who visits this weblog.

Thanks!

- Bob

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