ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library) is essentially a series of documents that are used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT Service Management. This customizable framework defines how Service Management is applied within an organization.
ITIL is organized into a series of sets (the books), the two major ones being service support and service delivery. These in turn are divided into disciplines. Service Support is the practice of those disciplines that enable IT Services to be provided effectively. Service Delivery covers the management of the IT services themselves.
IT service management provides verification that an organization is deploying IT Service Management best practices, as evidenced by an independent, external evaluation against standard that has been carried out by an approved audit organization.
