COBIT and Other Standards

COBIT is a framework to manage and govern the I&T infrastructure. It has evolved to address the requirement of governance and management of the I&T infrastructure by organizations against the changing technological environment.

There are other frameworks and standards which focus on management and governance of the IT infrastructure. We will discuss ITIL, ISO 20000 and NIST.

ITIL

The ITIL as a framework focuses only on IT services and their management across lifecycle. ITIL addresses IT components as configuration items to be stored on a centralized knowledge base called CMDB and store their lifecycle changes, events, and incidents. The CMDB also addresses their evolution as versions, integrations, etc.

The ITIL has the following service components:

• Service Strategy – To strategize the overall IT Service Delivery as per organizational structure and needs.
• The Service Design – It involves continuous assessment to design the IT services as per organizational structure and needs.
• Service Transition – It addresses change management and planning.
• Continuous Service Improvement – measure and analyze problems and bottlenecks for optimization.
• Service Operation – Manages operational issues by support tasks like Service Desk or Backups, etc.

ISO 20000

ISO 20000 is a service management standard having IT service management, and applicable for any service provider. It has wider scope as it applies to any service management company.

The standard is systematic and comprehensive. It also integrates with ISO 27001, ISO 9001, and other management standards.

COBIT framework emphasizes on what to do instead of how to do it. It delegates how-to issues to other tools, frameworks, and methodologies. It facilitates companies to be compliant in regulatory audits and also achieve strategic organizational goals.

Go back to COBIT 2019 Tutorial page