ITIL emerged in the 1980s when the British government concluded that the level of IT service provided by IT companies was unsatisfactory. The Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) started developing a plan for an efficient use of IT resources. Most of European countries adopted the IT system developed by CCTA and it quickly spread to the Americas. ITIL was even used as part of Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF).
ITIL is divided into five sections: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement (CSI), each necessary for acquiring the V3 ITIL Certification. An IT professional studying for the ITIL certification is able to approach one module at a time. Since the training is Internet-based, an ITIL student is able to spend as much time on an individual module as she needs to to fully grasp the content.
IT professionals take ITIL courses for both professional and self-development reasons. There is a need for certification in IT firms since many of them use ITIL or want to incorporate the training into their opeartions. Many people take the ITIL exam as a prerequisite to getting a better job.