ITIL glossary

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a collection of best practices in computer data center management. A major part of the benefit of the ITIL framework is its tight definitions of commonly used data-center words. In the IT world, the same word is used to mean wholly different things; or different people use a particular word with a meaning that is individually nuanced.

Incident

Any event which is not part of the standard operation of a service and which causes, or may cause, an interruption to, or a reduction in, the quality of that service.

Known error

A condition identified by successful diagnosis of the root cause of a problem, and the subsequent development of a Work-around.

Problem

A condition often identified as a result of multiple Incidents that exhibit common symptoms. Problems can also be identified from a single significant Incident, indicative of a single error, for which the cause is unknown, but for which the impact is significant.

Request For Change

A procedure to modify the system to resolve a known error. Often called an RFC.

Service Desk

The single point of contact through which all users (internal and external) reports incidents and problems.