The keepers of the IT Infrastructure Library Wednesday made available a refresh of the ITIL best practice framework, which industry watchers, vendors and IT executives anticipate will provide adopters with more how-to guidance.

ITIL Version 3, in the works since 2004, is available for purchase in five core books released by the Office of Government Commerce and published by The Stationary Office in the United Kingdom. Version 3 of the best practice framework follows a service-driven life-cycle approach and contains more prescriptive guidance, says Sharon Taylor, president of IT service management consultancy Aspect Group in Ottawa, Canada, and chief architect of ITIL Version 3.

Organizations such as JPMorgan Chase, Toyota Financial Services and Brigham Young University have successfully adopted previous versions of the framework, and IT managers can begin training on the new texts: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement. Consulting firms such as Pink Elephant announced educational programs in conjunction with the ITIL refresh.

"ITIL V3 really talks about how IT organizations deliver services within their companies and the processes that underpin the successful delivery of IT services," Taylor says. "This is something we have been saying over the years, but until now it has never been part of the core volumes."

The publisher says electronic versions of the hard copy books will be available shortly, and additional materials will be released over the summer.

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