Application Services Library

The Application Services Library (ASL) is a public domain framework of best practices used to standardize processes within Application Management, the discipline of producing and maintaining information systems and applications. The term "library" is used because ASL is presented as a set of books describing best practices from the IT industry. ASL is closely related to the frameworks ITIL (for IT Service Management) and BiSL (for Information Management and Functional Management) and to the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). The ASL framework was developed because ITIL proved inadequate for Application Management. At that time, ITIL lacked specific guidance for application design, development, maintenance and support. Newer ITIL versions, particularly V3, have increasingly addressed the Application Development and Application Management domains; the ASL BiSL Foundation has published a white paper comparing ITIL v3 and ASL. ASL was developed in the late nineties in the Netherlands, originally as the proprietary R2C model, which evolved into ASL in 2000. In 2001 it was donated by the IT Service Provider PinkRoccade to the ASL Foundation, now the ASL BiSL Foundation. The version ASL2 was published in 2009.