ITIL Dictionary of Terms
A - Z Dictionary of terms for ITIL. This is the official Dictionary of terms for ITIL, which is a set of practices for IT Service Management. ITIL® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited.
View the Agile Dictionary. Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Dictionary. Project Office Dictionary (P30). Full PRINCE2 glossary of terms. See also Risk Management Dictionary and Project Management Dictionary.
A -
acceptance to availability plan
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B -
back-out to business unit
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C -
call to customer-facing service
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D -
dashboard to driver
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E -
early life support (ELS) to external service provider
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F -
facilities management to functional escalation
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G - H -
gap analysis to hot standby
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I -
identity to ITIL
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J - K -
job description to known error record
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L -
lifecycle to live environment
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M -
maintainability to monitoring
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N -
near-shore to notional charging
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O -
objective to overhead
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P -
pain value analysis to PRojects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2)
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Q -
qualification to quick win
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R -
RACI to running costs
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S -
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) to system management
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T -
tactical to Type III service provider
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U -
underpinning contract (UC) to utility
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V -
validation to vulnerability
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W -
warm standby to workload
C - call to customer-facing service
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
(
ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A process improvement approach developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Mellon University, US. CMMI provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. It can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division or an entire organization. CMMI helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes. See www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi for more information. See also
maturity.
capacity management information system (CMIS)
capacity plan
(
ITIL Service Design) A plan used to manage the
resources required to deliver
IT services. The plan contains details of current and historic usage of
IT services and components, and any issues that need to be addressed (including related improvement activities). The plan also contains scenarios for different predictions of business demand and costed options to deliver the agreed service level targets.
capital budgeting
(
ITIL Service Strategy) The present commitment of funds in order to receive a return in the future in the form of additional cash inflows or reduced cash outflows.
capital expenditure (CAPEX)
capitalization
(
ITIL Service Strategy) Identifying major
cost as capital, even though no
asset is purchased. This is done to spread the impact of the
cost over multiple
accounting periods. The most common example of this is software development, or purchase of a software license.
category
A named group of things that have something in common. Categories are used to group similar things together. For example,
cost types are used to group similar types of
cost. Incident categories are used to group similar types of incident, while CI types are used to group similar types of
configuration item.
certification
Issuing a certificate to confirm compliance to a standard. Certification includes a formal
audit by an independent and
accredited body. The term is also used to mean awarding a certificate to provide evidence that a person has achieved a qualification.
change advisory board (CAB)
(
ITIL Service Transition) A group of people that support the
assessment, prioritization, authorization and scheduling of changes. A change advisory board is usually made up of representatives from: all areas within the IT service provider; the business; and third parties such as suppliers.
change management
(
ITIL Service Transition) The process responsible for controlling the lifecycle of all changes, enabling beneficial changes to be made with minimum disruption to
IT services.
change model
(
ITIL Service Transition) A repeatable way of dealing with a particular category of change. A change model defines specific agreed steps that will be followed for a change of this category. Change models may be very complex with many steps that require authorization (e.g. major software release) or may be very simple with no
requirement for authorization (e.g. password reset). See also
change advisory board;
standard change.
change proposal
(
ITIL Service Strategy) (
ITIL Service Transition) A document that includes a high level description of a potential service introduction or significant change, along with a corresponding
business case and an expected implementation schedule. Change proposals are normally created by the service portfolio management process and are passed to change management for authorization. Change management will review the potential impact on other services, on shared
resources, and on the overall change schedule. Once the change proposal has been authorized, service portfolio management will charter the service.
change schedule
(
ITIL Service Transition) A document that lists all authorized changes and their planned implementation dates, as well as the estimated dates of longer-term changes. A change schedule is sometimes called a forward schedule of change, even though it also contains information about changes that have already been implemented.
charging process
(
ITIL Service Strategy) The process responsible for deciding how much customers should pay (
pricing) and recovering money from them (billing). This process is not described in detail within the core
ITIL publications.
charter
(
ITIL Service Strategy) A document that contains details of a new service, a significant change or other significant project. Charters are typically authorized by service portfolio management or by a project management office. The term charter is also used to describe the act of authorizing the work required to complete the service change or project. See also
change proposal;
service charter;
project portfolio.
chronological analysis
(
ITIL Service Operation) A
technique used to help identify possible causes of problems. All available data about the problem is collected and sorted by date and time to provide a detailed timeline. This can make it possible to identify which events may have been triggered by others.
classification
The act of assigning a category to something. Classification is used to ensure consistent management and reporting.
Configuration items, incidents, problems, changes etc. are usually classified.
client
A generic term that means a customer, the business or a business customer. For example, client manager may be used as a synonym for business relationship manager.
The term is also used to mean:
- A computer that is used directly by a user – for example, a PC, a handheld computer or a work station
- The part of a client server application that the user directly interfaces with – for example, an email client.
closed
(
ITIL Service Operation) The final status in the lifecycle of an incident, problem, change etc. When the status is closed, no further action is taken.
COBIT
(
ITIL Continual Service Improvement) Control OBjectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) provides guidance and best practice for the management of IT processes. COBIT is published by ISACA in conjunction with the IT Governance Institute (ITGI). See www.isaca.org for more information.
code of practice
A guideline published by a public body or a standards organization, such as ISO or BSI. Many standards consist of a code of practice and a specification. The code of practice describes recommended best practice.
commercial off the shelf (COTS)
(
ITIL Service Design) Pre-existing application software or middleware that can be purchased from a third party.
compliance
Ensuring that a standard or set of guidelines is followed, or that proper, consistent
accounting or other practices are being employed.
component
A general term that is used to mean one part of something more complex. For example, a computer system may be a component of an
IT service; an application may be a component of a release unit. Components that need to be managed should be
configuration items.
component capacity management (CCM)
component failure impact analysis (CFIA)
computer telephony integration (CTI)
concurrency
A measure of the number of users engaged in the same operation at the same time.
confidentiality
(
ITIL Service Design) A security principle that requires that data should only be accessed by authorized people.
configuration baseline
(
ITIL Service Transition) The
baseline of a configuration that has been formally agreed and is managed through the change management process. A configuration
baseline is used as a basis for future
builds, releases and changes.
configuration identification
configuration management database (CMDB)
configuration management system (CMS)
continual service improvement (CSI)
(
ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A stage in the lifecycle of a service. Continual service improvement ensures that services are aligned with changing business needs by identifying and implementing improvements to
IT services that support business processes. The performance of the IT service provider is continually measured and improvements are made to processes,
IT services and IT infrastructure in order to increase efficiency, effectiveness and
cost effectiveness. Continual service improvement includes the seven-step improvement process. Although this process is associated with continual service improvement, most processes have activities that take place across multiple stages of the service lifecycle. See also
Plan-Do-Check-Act.
contract
A legally binding
agreement between two or more parties.
control
A means of managing a
risk, ensuring that a business objective is achieved or that a process is followed. Examples of control include policies, procedures, roles, RAID, door locks etc. A control is sometimes called a countermeasure or safeguard. Control also means to manage the utilization or behaviour of a
configuration item, system or
IT service.
Control OBjectives for Information and related Technology
control perspective
(
ITIL Service Strategy) An approach to the management of
IT services, processes, functions, assets etc. There can be several different control perspectives on the same
IT service, process etc., allowing different individuals or teams to focus on what is important and relevant to their specific role. Examples of control perspective include reactive and proactive management within IT operations, or a lifecycle view for an application project team.
cost
The amount of money spent on a specific
activity,
IT service or business unit. Costs consist of real
cost (money), notional
cost (such as people's time) and depreciation.
cost center
(
ITIL Service Strategy) A business unit or project to which costs are assigned. A cost center does not charge for services provided. An IT service provider can be run as a cost center or a profit center.
cost element
(
ITIL Service Strategy) The middle level of category to which costs are assigned in
budgeting and
accounting. The highest-level category is
cost type. For example, a
cost type of 'people' could have
cost elements of payroll, staff benefits, expenses, training, overtime etc. Cost elements can be further broken down to give
cost units. For example, the cost element 'expenses' could include
cost units of hotels, transport, meals etc.
cost unit
(
ITIL Service Strategy) The lowest level of category to which costs are assigned, cost units are usually things that can be easily counted (e.g. staff numbers, software licenses) or things easily measured (e.g. CPU usage, electricity consumed). Cost units are included within
cost elements. For example, a
cost element of 'expenses' could include cost units of hotels, transport, meals etc. See also
cost type.
countermeasure
Can be used to refer to any type of control. The term is most often used when referring to measures that increase resilience,
fault tolerance or reliability of an
IT service.
course corrections
Changes made to a plan or
activity that has already started to ensure that it will meet its objectives. Course corrections are made as a result of monitoring progress.
crisis management
Crisis management is the process responsible for managing the wider implications of business continuity. A crisis management team is responsible for strategic issues such as managing media relations and shareholder confidence, and decides when to invoke business continuity plans.
critical success factor (CSF)
Something that must happen if an
IT service, process, plan, project or other
activity is to succeed.
key performance indicators are used to measure the achievement of each critical success factor. For example, a critical success factor of 'protect IT services when making changes' could be measured by
key performance indicators such as 'percentage reduction of unsuccessful changes', 'percentage reduction in changes causing incidents' etc.
culture
A set of values that is shared by a group of people, including expectations about how people should behave, their ideas, beliefs and practices. See also
vision.
customer
Someone who buys goods or services. The customer of an IT service provider is the person or group who defines and agrees the service level targets. The term is also sometimes used informally to mean user – for example, 'This is a customer-focused organization.'
customer agreement portfolio
customer-facing service
(
ITIL Service Design) An
IT service that is visible to the customer. These are normally services that support the customer's business processes and facilitate one or more outcomes desired by the customer. All live customer-facing services, including those available for deployment, are recorded in the
service catalogue along with customer-visible information about
deliverables, prices, contact points, ordering and request processes. Other information such as
relationships to supporting services and other CIs will also be recorded for internal use by the IT service provider.
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