The ATLAS experiment is one of the multi-purpose detectors of the LHC. An important role of the Detector Control System (DCS) is played by the Common Infrastructure Control (CIC) which supervises the common services such as rack control, environment monitoring, cooling, ventilation, electricity distribution, gas, magnets, cryogenics, safety systems and LHC parameters. The CIC system is integrated into the DCS back-end, running applications using a commercial SCADA software package, and is designed to allow for further evolution over the lifetime of the experiment. The CIC either reads out the operational parameters of the infrastructure with Embedded Local Monitoring Boards (ELMB) or acquires data of external control systems using a standardized communication protocol, and subsequently processes and archives the data. The status information of the equipment is then structured in a hierarchy of finite state machines to allow for efficient and homogeneous operator control in the experiment control room. An overview of the hardware and software of the ATLAS CIC together with a report on the first experiences with regular operations including beam commissioning in 2008 will be given.