Obtaining an ITIL Certification isn’t as important as it once was in the age of DevOps. However, there are still compelling reasons to pursue ITIL certification.
If there were a professional bible for IT engineers, it would be the Information Technology Infrastructure Library or ITIL. Understanding ITIL and proving ITIL mastery through ITIL Certification was a significant qualification for a range of IT roles for many years.
However, ITIL is arguably less significant today. Although it is not time to abandon ITIL, IT engineers, whether new to the industry or in established roles trying to advance, may be better served to invest in other forms of expertise and certifications, depending on their ambitions and region.
What Exactly Is ITIL?
ITIL is a set of rules to assist enterprises in defining and managing IT operations.
Although ITIL is not a compliance framework, it is similar in that it outlines several ideas and procedures for the IT team to follow. For the most part, the ITIL recommendations are written at a high level; the ITIL does not tell you exactly how to do things or which specific technologies to employ, so much as it informs you which essential issues to keep in mind when addressing IT management. This is especially true in the most recent edition of ITIL 4, which is less prescriptive than previous iterations.
For example, ITIL 4 includes a set of standards for managing change in IT processes. It does not specify how to manage changes explicitly, but it does advocate fundamental best practices such as categorizing modifications based on their level of risk and importance and handling them accordingly.
History of ITIL
The ITIL framework dates back to the late 1980s. It received various updates over the 2000s but remained unchanged into the 2010s. ITIL certification did not become available until 2019.
This implies that, until recently, the ITIL had not been revised to reflect the era of DevOps, microservices, containers, and other significant innovations that have changed IT administration over the last decade.
ITIL Certification’s Changing Value in the DevOps Era
Learning the ITIL and obtaining an ITIL certification (which is offered by Axelos, the firm that presently oversees the ITIL) is arguably less significant than they once were because the ITIL has not done an outstanding job of keeping up with innovation in the IT business. You may be more competitive in the IT job market nowadays if you are certified in DevOps rather than ITIL.
After all, ITIL was the only conceptual framework available to serve as a guide for IT operations just ten or twenty years ago. DevOps, on the other hand, now plays a similar role. Unlike ITIL, is not a single framework or collection of best practices. It provides a conceptual foundation for influencing your organization’s approach to IT operations and associated disciplines.
Multiple technical teams
The ITIL is also potentially constrained because it narrowly focuses on IT operations. This is a disadvantage in an era when firms are under increasing pressure to their multiple technical teams by promoting cooperation among developers, IT engineers, security engineers, QA experts, and others. Investing in a framework that primarily serves the needs of IT engineers is not a good place to start for cross-organizational collaboration.
Another consideration if you’re considering obtaining ITIL-certified is that some employers may value your ability to demonstrate practical skills on the platforms they use more than your knowledge of ITIL concepts. In other words, certification in AWS or Azure may be more beneficial than certification in ITIL certification. Engineers who understand how to handle complicated cloud workloads may be more helpful to modern firms than those who understand ITIL’s rather abstract suggestions regarding things like change management.
Location Is Important
It’s also worth mentioning that ITIL carries varying degrees of weight in different geographical places.
It is mainly prevalent in Europe, where it originated and where Axelos is headquartere. ITIL certification is less likely to be prioritize among engineers in the United States.
Understand the 5 Stages of the ITIL Life Cycle
According to the ITIL framework, the life cycle consists of five phases: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operations, and Continual Service Improvement.
Let us go over the five core categories or volumes of the ITIL Life cycle:
Strategy for Service
You must develop a strategy when deciding what services and processes will be supply. As a result, Service Strategy is the phase in which you choose which services are vital, how to allocate funding to the services, and so on.
It comes down to developing a business case based on industry trends, priority, available cash, risks, etc. Service strategy assists you in understanding the company’s requirements and the demands of the client, as well as developing a business case that explains how you may increase the value to the customer. Next, what are the components of a service strategy?
Strategy Management advises you on which strategy to use, how to implement it, who is responsible for it, and how to improve the system to line with the customer’s business needs.
Service Portfolio
Service Portfolio Management is the approach to use when it comes to getting the most value with the least amount of risk and cost. As a result, the essence of this procedure is optimizing and distributing resources.
Financial management is keeping track of costs, budgeting, and controlling them. How much money is spent on IT services?
Demand Management assists you in balancing market demand and your capacity. This approach helps you understand usage patterns and plan which services are your core and supporting services.
The Business Relationship Management approach recommends the best strategy to sustain customer relationships.
Design of Services
The Service Design core volume will help you gain a big picture of resource consumption. Because benefits while keeping the entire ITIL lifecycle in mind. Because business needs vary regularly, the design should be adaptable. It would be best if you made a trade-off so that the service may be launch within. The available resources, time, and limits. Understanding these concepts is essential for passing your ITIL Exam.
Conclusion
Overall, ITIL is certainly still vital to many enterprises. A fast check of job boards reveals thousands of advertisements mentioning ITIL, for example. Learning ITIL and obtaining an ITIL certification would not harm you.
Still, whether ITIL expertise is as crucial today as it was 10 or 20 years ago is debatable. So particularly in the United States. ITIL is no longer as important as it was in the DevOps age.
