ITIL Exam Practice Charts

A quick update- we pushed out an updated ITIL Prime member chart to the homepage. With so many ITIL test prep metrics which can be sliced and diced, its difficult to restrain ourselves from creating a dedicated "community reporting" tab. We simply don't want to clutter up the site too much, and want to keep the focus on ITIL practice exams.

At the same time, its very interesting to see the ups and downs of a dynamic ITIL exam community. Also interesting is how those taking the V2 ITIL exam practice tests are just about neck and neck with the ITIL V3 exam takers!

ITIL V3 and the New ITIL Foundation Exam

The majority of questions we at ITIL Prime receive revolve around what version of ITL practice exams new users should sign up for. For the past couple of years, ITIL has been in Version 2 (V2), and there was really no need to denote its version when discussing concepts. But now that ITIL V3 has been released, along with a new ITIL Foundation Exam, it is becoming very confusing as to which ITIL exam one should prepare for.

To start with, the ITIL V3 Foundation exam is fairly new, and has not made the ITIL V2 Foundation exam obsolete (yet). We've read conflicting reports about when exactly the ITIL V2 Foundation exam will be phased out. These dates range from December 2007 to December 2008. We tend to think that the ITIL Foundation exam will be offered in both flavors (V2 and V3) well in to 2008.

In addition, the Foundation certificate earned from either exam holds just as much weight. Both ITIL Foundation certificates remain valid indefinitely, with no plans for either to become invalid. So those of you who sit for the V2 ITIL Foundation exam do not need to worry about holding a certification which is defunct after a year.

The content covered in the V2 ITIL Foundation exam focuses almost entirely on Service Support and Service Delivery, which comprise 11 processes. The ITIL V3 exam only touches on these processes, and tends to focus more on the concept of an ITIL Service Lifecycle, and its new core volumes. Needless to say, the ITIL content which is covered is significantly broader within the ITIL V3 exam, yet it is not as detailed as the processes covered in depth by the ITIL V2 exam.

Because of the differences, we've added a new "Which Exam Version is for Me?" pop-up to our registration page to help new users avoid any confusion regarding which ITIL practice tests to use. If you're still unsure which exam you're registered for (as many times the ITIL version will not be stated), here's a quick tip: If you're exam number is EX0-100 or BH0-001, then it is a safe bet that you are taking the ITIL V2 exam. As reminder, ITIL Prime has created ITIL test prep content for both versions of the exam, and offers them at the same price. Good luck!

AJAX Technology and ITIL Practice Exams

One of the primary features that sets the ITIL Prime exam prep service apart from its competitors is the exam simulator offered on the site. For nearly all of the sites we found which offered ITIL practice exams, there was a general flaw with the way the actual exam simulator operated once the user signed up.

Many of the exam simulators we saw required a software download, which made us suspicious that some type of adware would be unknowingly installed on our computer. Other sites would present the entire ITIL exam in a single browser window, which is not really representative of the true life ITIL Foundation exam experience. And still others would simply offer a massive PDF file with a digital download of ITIL practice questions; which sort of negates the whole ITIL exam preparation experience.

So, being the self-proclaimed (ahem) resourceful techies that we are, we set about to develop a completely new ITIL exam simulator from the ground up. Since everyone on our team had sat for the ITIL Foundation exam at a major testing center, we knew exactly what types of functions the real life ITIL exam provided for its users. Primarily, the

ITIL Foundation exam environment allows for:

• Back and forth navigation between ITIL Foundation exam questions
  
• Marking of ITIL exam questions for further review before grading
  
• A live timer, indicating how long until the ITIL exam would be automatically submitted
  
• The ability to navigate back to any ITIL question (marked or otherwise) prior to completing the exam

Once we began the initial specification for ITIL Prime's exam simulator, we began to hit a wall. How could we reproduce these standardized exam features without forcing a software download by the user? Enter AJAX!

AJAX is a web technology that works with nearly all modern day browsers, and allows web content to load without a browser refresh. What this means, is that we would be able to control on-screen content (in this case, ITIL Foundation exam questions) without the need to reload your browser every time a new question gets pulled from the ITIL Prime database. After a month of prototyping the new ITIL practice exams with our hip new AJAX components, we were very happy with the results. Add some tweaks here, some optimizations there, and what you have now is one of the only exam simulators on the web which work without any plugins or additional software! Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback regarding the ITIL practice exam simulator, as well as the suggestions on new ways we can improve the overall experience; we'll be sure to keep everyone updated as new features are added.

Latest ITIL Exam Practice Updates

Well, it was becoming a bit cumbersome constantly shifting around the ITIL Prime homepage every time we made an update to the site, so we decided to create a dedicated blog to post news and other related information. Below are the updates which have been made in the past couple of weeks (sort of a micro-archive, really).

Check back often to follow the updates we make to our ITIL Foundation exam practice service.


September 5th, 2007
We just implemented a number of code optimizations to ITIL Prime. Most importantly are the reports and charts in the My Performance section. They were starting to slow down a bit during peak hours, but now they should be running very quickly due to some updates we made to the underlying AJAX code. As a reminder, these charts track member performance on ITIL Foundation exams.


August 24th, 2007
We're early! After being a bit ahead of schedule with the new ITIL V3 Foundation pratice exams, we've decided to gradually roll out the new content to ITIL Prime and complete our testing over the next week. It's looking very positive, however, and we expect to have the new ITIL V3 Foundation practice exams available on ITIL Prime for everyone after this weekend.


August 13th, 2007
The team has been working for what seems on eternity on developing ITIL V3 Foundation testing content. Because the focus of ITIL V3 more holistic and centered around a Service Lifecycle approach and the new ITIL core volumes, we've been doing a ton of research and reference checking. We can see the light though, and hope to have the new ITIL practice exams posted by September 1!


August 3rd, 2007
We've added an ITIL Jobs section which includes both syndicated job postings from all over the web, as well as jobs posted directly to ITIL Prime. Feedback to the new ITIL Jobs section has been surprisingly positive, and we're hoping it helps our community of newly certified Foundationers who complete their ITIL practice exams!