Although recent studies related to salary and compensation have shown a decreasing impact of IT certifications on pay, and interest in IT certification has definitely dropped since the boom during the late 1990s into 2001, some IT certifications remain evergreen. Despite ups and downs in the economy, the job market and IT professional confidence levels, certain certifications keep going strong, and remain highly sought-after by IT professionals and highly valued by IT employers.

1. Cisco Certified Internetwork Engineer (CCIE)

Long a nonpareil certification, and now on the scene for more than 10 years, the CCIE remains possibly the best-recognized high-value IT certification of all time (or at least back into the late 1980s, when such programs started to attract significant interest and participation). Though the CCIE requires no previous credentials, it does include two pretty formidable exams: a two-hour $300 written exam and an all-day (eight-hour) $1,250 laboratory exam that is still regarded as one of the most fiendishly difficult of all certification exams around. It's not unusual for even highly qualified candidates to take the laboratory exam two or more times before they pass, and it's only possible to take the lab exam in one of 10 locations worldwide, so most candidates will have to absorb travel costs as well as the steep lab exam fee.

The CCIE also comes in five tracks -- Routing and Switching, Security, Service Provider, Storage Networking, and