The ITIL Foundation certification was created to provide a standard educational path for IT professionals and to introduce a uniform method of certifying individuals as IT specialists. The ITIL Foundation certification has three levels of exams – Foundation, Intermediate, and Expert. Candidates wishing to become ITIL consultants or administrators need to complete the Foundation certification first. The ITIL Foundation exams focus on ITIL components and functions, web design strategies, and basic knowledge of how servers work.
This certification requires passing one exam – the Foundation Certification. This exam is about two hours long and can be taken in person at a local technical college, community college, or any other institution that offers ITIL courses. The Foundation exam is intended to cover the broadest range of topics possible so that ITIL consultants and administrators have a solid foundation of knowledge needed in different scenarios. It is designed to apply the main principles of ITIL to help ITIL departments and teams assess their own processes and those of their customers. Once these concepts are understood and applied, the ITIL consultants and administrators can better demonstrate their understanding and effectiveness in service delivery.
The Intermediate level of ITIL is divided into six foundations. These foundations cover aspects of ITIL as a whole – organizational, operational, technical, financial, and communication. The six foundations offer a thorough grounding in all the main areas of ITIL.
The ITIL Foundation certifications require passing a set number of exams – seven in total. ITIL V3 foundation exams cover the same material found in the Foundation exams, including topics like service design, risk management, service data flow, and configuration management. However, the ITIL V3 foundation exams also include additional topics like training courses and online study material. Candidates who successfully complete the foundation exams should be able to successfully complete the Intermediate level, which covers the most fundamental aspects of ITIL.
The ITIL Foundation certification exam contains four prerequisites, and these are: a basic knowledge of ITIL, an understanding of how servers work and a reasonable level of comprehension and detail about the foundation of ITIL. Once you‘ve met these requirements, you can either pass or fail the foundation section. If you pass, you’ll be awarded an ITIL V3 Foundation endorsement card, which gives you full authorization to operate a server running the ITIL system, and gives you access to the ITIL support forum. You will need to complete the transition course, but this isn’t required.
To apply for the foundation exam, you must be a UK resident with an IT job and a valid identity card. You must also be over eighteen years old. In addition, you must pass the ITIL Foundation written test and pass the ITIL V3 video and audio exams. There are no prerequisite studies for either the V3 Foundation or the Intermediate certifications. Candidates who successfully complete the ITIL foundation exam and those who successfully complete the Intermediate certification course are awarded an ITIL V3 Expert status, which means that they’re considered experts in their fields by The Organization for Information Technology Management (OITM).
The ITIL Foundation was created in response to the growth of newer security frameworks, such as the Digital Certificate (DCP) and NACs (Netscape Certificate), and to provide an alternative to those frameworks. According to the ITIL V3 Guidelines, all ITIL professionals must maintain and use the ITIL Common Language (ILLC) Toolkit, version three. This toolkit is available free and helps an ITIL practitioner to build a foundation in the ITIL terminology and to learn how to implement the best practices in their ITIL environment. This version of the Toolkit is called the “Common Language External Code Evaluation (CLCE) compliant Intermediate Code Review System (ICRS), version three”. The International Information Security Training Initiative (IITI) also offers a version of ITIL called “The International Information Security Certification (IISCS) for consultants” and “the International Computer Security Certification (ICSTC) for midsize and small business IT professionals”. If you don’t plan on learning or applying the technology in the future, you might want to consider these two versions instead of choosing the Foundation or Intermediate certifications.
