ITIL, or Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a framework of best practices designed to assist businesses in aligning their IT services with customer and business needs. It provides a systematic approach to IT service management (ITSM) and aims to standardize the selection, planning, delivery, maintenance, and overall lifecycle of IT services within a business. The primary purpose of ITIL is to enhance the efficiency and performance of IT services, enabling IT administrators to work as partners rather than just back-end support. ITIL is not meant to prescribe exactly how an organization should plan, build, and deliver IT services, but rather to provide a set of best practices to guide organizations in building efficient processes that cost less and achieve more. It has undergone several revisions and spans four versions and five books, each containing guidelines surrounding the various processes and phases of the IT service lifecycle. ITIL is widely used and has gained immense recognition for its ability to help organizations optimize their operations, enhance customer satisfaction, and reduce IT operations costs.