Become an Expert With ITIL 4 Certification

The ITIL or Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a framework used to manage IT service delivery across the globe. In this framework, a service lifecycle model has been defined that prescribes specific activities and processes for designing, developing, delivering, and supporting IT services. Here, you can consider IT services as IT activities that are delivering business value to the end-users, internal or external stakeholders, and customers. Some examples of such IT services include corporate websites that are based on backend IT processes, centralized corporate email, network administration, etc. 

ITIL Certification Program overview

AXELOS took the ownership of ITIL in July 2013. Since then, they have been maintaining the ITIL framework and accrediting examination and training institutes. There are hundreds of ATOs available to provide training and certification exams. Before this, all the candidates are required to finish the training institute. 

IT has become an important part of service delivery for companies relying on complex computing resources. IT is used for generating revenue and keeping their business operational. Through ITIL, companies define and implement a repeatable, documented process that helps them stay focused on the other small and large details involved in creating new IT services and managing them afterward. There are five phases or practice areas in the ITIL service lifecycle with supporting processes, principles, and policies within each phase:

• Service Strategy – In this focus, the focus is put on defining the strategies as strategic assets followed by implementing and maintaining this deliberate, coherent strategy. This is known for addressing business processes, policies, corporate governance and compliance, decision-making, and corporate culture. This ensures that the business is ready for service improvement.
• Service Design – This phase includes assessing the business management processes like availability, capacity, service level, etc. for designing and developing new services or improving existing ones.
• Service Transition – This phase is used for transitioning from the development stage to the production operations including quality control and testing.
• Service Operation – This phase is for defining the process of managing services once they are in production use. It addresses the processes of service operation like access management, access management, the application lifecycle, incident response, and helpdesk support.
• Continuous Service Improvement – In this phase, new requirements for the ITIL phases will be defined on the basis of service levels and operational feedback. It helps in ensuring that all the procedures and policies are followed, operational lessons are learned and incorporated into future service refinements, and the service level agreements are met.

You cannot underestimate the value afforded by the ITIL’s comprehensive cycle for the IT services. Through the ITIL framework, companies can create and maintain the structure and discipline needed for designing, developing, delivering, and managing new and improved services timely and on a budget. Before the ITIL framework came into existence, many IT projects would have budget overruns, fail outright, or veer off course. This was because of the lack of service management expertise, discipline, mismanagement, scope-creep, and a lack of repeatable results. You can use ITIL for solving all these problems efficiently. In fact, ITIL is considered to be the standard for IT service management frameworks.

ITIL 4 Certification

The ITIL Certification scheme offers a modular approach to the framework. It contains a series of qualifications that are focused on different aspects of the best practices used in ITIL to varying degrees of detail and depth. It has a tiered qualification structure that offers flexibility to the candidates in relation to the different areas and disciplines of the ITIL. This way, they can focus on the key areas of their interest.

Recently, ITIL evolved from the ITIL v3 to ITIL 4. AXELOS has provided a clear description of how you can transition from one scheme to another. All the candidates with ITIL v3 Foundation certification are encouraged to start the ITIL 4 course for the foundation level right away for updating their skills. If you are in the intermediate modules, you need to collect 17 credits so that you can transition to ITIL 4 through the Managing Professional transition module.

In the ITIL 4 Certification scheme, there are four certification levels:

1. Foundation
2. ITIL 4 Managing Professional
3. ITIL 4 Strategic Leader
4. Master

1. ITIL 4 Foundation level 

This level has been designed to give candidates an introduction to the ITIL 4 framework. It also allows candidates to see IT service management using an end-to-end operation model that creates, delivers, and continually improves the tech-enabled products.

2. ITIL 4 Managing Professional 

The ITIL 4 Managing Professional or MP stream is for providing the candidates with technical and practical knowledge on running IT-enabled teams, services, and workflows successfully. It is mainly aimed at the IT practitioners who are working withing digital teams and technology across businesses.

3. ITIL 4 Strategic Leader

The ITIL 4 Strategic Leader certification is for individuals who want to use ITIL for all digitally enabled services and not just for IT operations. When you become an ITIL 4 Strategic Leader, you are demonstrating that you have a clear understanding of how IT can direct and influence business strategy.

4. Master level

To get the ITIL Master level certification, you must be able to justify your selection and application of principles, techniques, and methods from ITIL and other supporting management techniques. As a master-level certification holder, you must be able to achieve the desired business outcomes in practical assignments.

When companies adopt the ITIL framework, they are ensuring that all the delivered services are according to the set of well-defined and consistent processes. The benefit of using ITIL includes improved customer satisfaction, reduced cost of developing and deploying services, quality improvements, increased productivity from the IT department, increased flexibility to changing business requirements, and better management metrics.