Information Technology Service Management

Abstract

Nowadays, there is an increasing dependence on information and on the systems that provide such information. So, for many organizations, the information and technology that supports them represent the most valuable assets of the company. Research on Information Technology (IT) management practices in many organizations around the world has revealed that most of them are not optimizing their investment on IT. The differentiating factor between those who succeed and those who failed is the participation of management in key IT decisions that must be aligned with the strategic and operational business plans and a proper corporate governance of IT. Corporate governance evaluates and directs the use of IT to support the organization, monitoring its use to achieve plans, and provides guidance to advising, informing or assisting directors, and assuring the compliance with laws and regulations. Some frameworks and models have been developed related to the governance and service management of IT. ITIL® (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is the most used and extended model related to IT service management. The purpose of this chapter is to describe briefly the main phases and processes related to the ITIL® service lifecycle, detailed information related to the information security management process, and the qualifying system for IT Service Management with ITIL®.