diff --git a/cassandra2/pom.xml b/cassandra2/pom.xml
index f0f19ede..fccd4b32 100644
--- a/cassandra2/pom.xml
+++ b/cassandra2/pom.xml
@@ -1,60 +1,81 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 
 <!--
 Copyright (c) 2012-2016 YCSB contributors. All rights reserved.
 
 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you
 may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You
 may obtain a copy of the License at
 
 http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 
 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or
 implied. See the License for the specific language governing
 permissions and limitations under the License. See accompanying
 LICENSE file.
 -->
 
 <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.yahoo.ycsb</groupId>
     <artifactId>binding-parent</artifactId>
     <version>0.8.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
     <relativePath>../binding-parent</relativePath>
   </parent>
 
   <artifactId>cassandra2-binding</artifactId>
   <name>Cassandra 2.1+ DB Binding</name>
   <packaging>jar</packaging>
 
+  <properties>
+    <!-- Skip tests by default. will be activated by jdk8 profile -->
+    <skipTests>true</skipTests>
+  </properties>
+
   <dependencies>
     <!-- CQL driver -->
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.datastax.cassandra</groupId>
       <artifactId>cassandra-driver-core</artifactId>
       <version>${cassandra2.cql.version}</version>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.yahoo.ycsb</groupId>
       <artifactId>core</artifactId>
       <version>${project.version}</version>
       <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.cassandraunit</groupId>
-      <artifactId>cassandra-unit-shaded</artifactId>
-      <version>2.1.9.2</version>
+      <artifactId>cassandra-unit</artifactId>
+      <version>3.0.0.1</version>
+      <classifier>shaded</classifier>
       <scope>test</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>junit</groupId>
       <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
       <version>4.12</version>
       <scope>test</scope>
     </dependency>
   </dependencies>
+
+  <profiles>
+    <!-- Cassandra 2.2+ requires JDK8 to run, so none of our tests
+         will work unless we're using jdk8.
+      -->
+    <profile>
+      <id>jdk8-tests</id>
+      <activation>
+        <jdk>1.8</jdk>
+      </activation>
+      <properties>
+        <skipTests>false</skipTests>
+      </properties>
+    </profile>
+  </profiles>
 </project>
diff --git a/cassandra2/src/test/java/com/yahoo/ycsb/db/CassandraCQLClientTest.java b/cassandra2/src/test/java/com/yahoo/ycsb/db/CassandraCQLClientTest.java
index bc73a737..60b7e2f3 100644
--- a/cassandra2/src/test/java/com/yahoo/ycsb/db/CassandraCQLClientTest.java
+++ b/cassandra2/src/test/java/com/yahoo/ycsb/db/CassandraCQLClientTest.java
@@ -1,177 +1,177 @@
 /**
  * Copyright (c) 2015 YCSB contributors All rights reserved.
  *
  * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you
  * may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You
  * may obtain a copy of the License at
  *
  * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
  *
  * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or
  * implied. See the License for the specific language governing
  * permissions and limitations under the License. See accompanying
  * LICENSE file.
  */
 
 package com.yahoo.ycsb.db;
 
 import static org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.hasEntry;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.hasSize;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.is;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.notNullValue;
 
 import com.google.common.collect.Sets;
 
 import com.datastax.driver.core.ResultSet;
 import com.datastax.driver.core.Row;
 import com.datastax.driver.core.Session;
 import com.datastax.driver.core.Statement;
 import com.datastax.driver.core.querybuilder.Insert;
 import com.datastax.driver.core.querybuilder.QueryBuilder;
 import com.datastax.driver.core.querybuilder.Select;
 import com.yahoo.ycsb.ByteIterator;
 import com.yahoo.ycsb.Status;
 import com.yahoo.ycsb.StringByteIterator;
 import com.yahoo.ycsb.measurements.Measurements;
 import com.yahoo.ycsb.workloads.CoreWorkload;
 
 import org.cassandraunit.CassandraCQLUnit;
 import org.cassandraunit.dataset.cql.ClassPathCQLDataSet;
 import org.junit.After;
 import org.junit.Before;
 import org.junit.ClassRule;
 import org.junit.Test;
 
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Properties;
 import java.util.Set;
 
 /**
  * Integration tests for the Cassandra client
  */
 public class CassandraCQLClientTest {
   private final static String TABLE = "usertable";
   private final static String HOST = "localhost";
   private final static int PORT = 9142;
   private final static String DEFAULT_ROW_KEY = "user1";
 
   private CassandraCQLClient client;
   private Session session;
 
   @ClassRule
-  public static CassandraCQLUnit cassandraUnit =
-      new CassandraCQLUnit(new ClassPathCQLDataSet("ycsb.cql", "ycsb"));
+  public static CassandraCQLUnit cassandraUnit = new CassandraCQLUnit(new ClassPathCQLDataSet("ycsb.cql", "ycsb"));
 
   @Before
-  public void setUpClient() throws Exception {
+  public void setUp() throws Exception {
+    session = cassandraUnit.getSession();
+
     Properties p = new Properties();
     p.setProperty("hosts", HOST);
     p.setProperty("port", Integer.toString(PORT));
     p.setProperty("table", TABLE);
 
     Measurements.setProperties(p);
     final CoreWorkload workload = new CoreWorkload();
     workload.init(p);
     client = new CassandraCQLClient();
     client.setProperties(p);
     client.init();
   }
 
-  @Before
-  public void setSession() {
-    session = cassandraUnit.getSession();
-  }
-
   @After
   public void tearDownClient() throws Exception {
-    client.cleanup();
+    if (client != null) {
+      client.cleanup();
+    }
     client = null;
   }
 
   @After
   public void clearTable() throws Exception {
     // Clear the table so that each test starts fresh.
     final Statement truncate = QueryBuilder.truncate(TABLE);
-    cassandraUnit.getSession().execute(truncate);
+    if (cassandraUnit != null) {
+      cassandraUnit.getSession().execute(truncate);
+    }
   }
 
   @Test
   public void testReadMissingRow() throws Exception {
     final HashMap<String, ByteIterator> result = new HashMap<String, ByteIterator>();
     final Status status = client.read(TABLE, "Missing row", null, result);
     assertThat(result.size(), is(0));
     assertThat(status, is(Status.NOT_FOUND));
   }
 
   private void insertRow() {
     final String rowKey = DEFAULT_ROW_KEY;
     Insert insertStmt = QueryBuilder.insertInto(TABLE);
     insertStmt.value(CassandraCQLClient.YCSB_KEY, rowKey);
 
     insertStmt.value("field0", "value1");
     insertStmt.value("field1", "value2");
     session.execute(insertStmt);
   }
 
   @Test
   public void testRead() throws Exception {
     insertRow();
 
     final HashMap<String, ByteIterator> result = new HashMap<String, ByteIterator>();
     final Status status = client.read(CoreWorkload.table, DEFAULT_ROW_KEY, null, result);
     assertThat(status, is(Status.OK));
     assertThat(result.entrySet(), hasSize(11));
     assertThat(result, hasEntry("field2", null));
 
     final HashMap<String, String> strResult = new HashMap<String, String>();
     for (final Map.Entry<String, ByteIterator> e : result.entrySet()) {
       if (e.getValue() != null) {
         strResult.put(e.getKey(), e.getValue().toString());
       }
     }
     assertThat(strResult, hasEntry(CassandraCQLClient.YCSB_KEY, DEFAULT_ROW_KEY));
     assertThat(strResult, hasEntry("field0", "value1"));
     assertThat(strResult, hasEntry("field1", "value2"));
   }
 
   @Test
   public void testReadSingleColumn() throws Exception {
     insertRow();
     final HashMap<String, ByteIterator> result = new HashMap<String, ByteIterator>();
     final Set<String> fields = Sets.newHashSet("field1");
     final Status status = client.read(CoreWorkload.table, DEFAULT_ROW_KEY, fields, result);
     assertThat(status, is(Status.OK));
     assertThat(result.entrySet(), hasSize(1));
     final Map<String, String> strResult = StringByteIterator.getStringMap(result);
     assertThat(strResult, hasEntry("field1", "value2"));
   }
 
   @Test
   public void testUpdate() throws Exception {
     final String key = "key";
     final HashMap<String, String> input = new HashMap<String, String>();
     input.put("field0", "value1");
     input.put("field1", "value2");
 
     final Status status = client.insert(TABLE, key, StringByteIterator.getByteIteratorMap(input));
     assertThat(status, is(Status.OK));
 
     // Verify result
     final Select selectStmt =
         QueryBuilder.select("field0", "field1")
             .from(TABLE)
             .where(QueryBuilder.eq(CassandraCQLClient.YCSB_KEY, key))
             .limit(1);
 
     final ResultSet rs = session.execute(selectStmt);
     final Row row = rs.one();
     assertThat(row, notNullValue());
     assertThat(rs.isExhausted(), is(true));
     assertThat(row.getString("field0"), is("value1"));
     assertThat(row.getString("field1"), is("value2"));
   }
 }
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 35105dad..5c525985 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -1,170 +1,170 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <!-- 
 Copyright (c) 2012 - 2016 YCSB contributors. All rights reserved.
 
 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you
 may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You
 may obtain a copy of the License at
 
 http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 
 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or
 implied. See the License for the specific language governing
 permissions and limitations under the License. See accompanying
 LICENSE file.
 -->
 
 <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
 
   <groupId>com.yahoo.ycsb</groupId>
   <artifactId>root</artifactId>
   <version>0.8.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
   <packaging>pom</packaging>
 
   <name>YCSB Root</name>
 
   <description>
     This is the top level project that builds, packages the core and all the DB bindings for YCSB infrastructure.
   </description>
 
   <scm>
     <connection>scm:git:git://github.com/brianfrankcooper/YCSB.git</connection>
     <tag>master</tag>
     <url>https://github.com/brianfrankcooper/YCSB</url>
   </scm>
   <dependencyManagement>
     <dependencies>
       <dependency>
         <groupId>checkstyle</groupId>
         <artifactId>checkstyle</artifactId>
         <version>5.0</version>
       </dependency>
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.jdom</groupId>
         <artifactId>jdom</artifactId>
         <version>1.1</version>
       </dependency>
       <dependency>
         <groupId>com.google.collections</groupId>
         <artifactId>google-collections</artifactId>
         <version>1.0</version>
       </dependency>
       <!--
       Nail down slf4j version to 1.6 so that it defaults to no-op logger.
       http://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#StaticLoggerBinder
       -->
       <dependency>
         <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
         <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
         <version>1.6.4</version>
       </dependency>
     </dependencies>
   </dependencyManagement>
 
   <!-- Properties Management -->
   <properties>
     <maven.assembly.version>2.5.5</maven.assembly.version>
     <maven.dependency.version>2.10</maven.dependency.version>
     <hbase094.version>0.94.27</hbase094.version>
     <hbase098.version>0.98.14-hadoop2</hbase098.version>
     <hbase10.version>1.0.2</hbase10.version>
     <accumulo.version>1.6.0</accumulo.version>
     <cassandra.version>1.2.9</cassandra.version>
     <cassandra.cql.version>1.0.3</cassandra.cql.version>
-    <cassandra2.cql.version>2.1.8</cassandra2.cql.version>
+    <cassandra2.cql.version>3.0.0</cassandra2.cql.version>
     <geode.version>1.0.0-incubating.M1</geode.version>
     <infinispan.version>7.2.2.Final</infinispan.version>
     <kudu.version>0.6.0</kudu.version>
     <openjpa.jdbc.version>2.1.1</openjpa.jdbc.version>
     <!--<mapkeeper.version>1.0</mapkeeper.version>-->
     <mongodb.version>3.0.3</mongodb.version>
     <mongodb.async.version>2.0.1</mongodb.async.version>
     <orientdb.version>2.1.8</orientdb.version>
     <redis.version>2.0.0</redis.version>
     <s3.version>1.10.20</s3.version>
     <voldemort.version>0.81</voldemort.version>
     <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
     <thrift.version>0.8.0</thrift.version>
     <hypertable.version>0.9.5.6</hypertable.version>
     <couchbase.version>1.4.10</couchbase.version>
     <tarantool.version>1.6.5</tarantool.version>
     <aerospike.version>3.1.2</aerospike.version>
     <solr.version>5.4.0</solr.version>
   </properties>
 
   <modules>
     <!-- our internals -->
     <module>core</module>
     <module>binding-parent</module>
     <!-- all the datastore bindings, lex sorted please -->
     <module>accumulo</module>
     <module>aerospike</module>
     <module>cassandra</module>
     <module>cassandra2</module>
     <module>couchbase</module>
     <module>distribution</module>
     <module>dynamodb</module>
     <module>elasticsearch</module>
     <module>geode</module>
     <module>googledatastore</module>
     <module>hbase094</module>
     <module>hbase098</module>
     <module>hbase10</module>
     <module>hypertable</module>
     <module>infinispan</module>
     <module>jdbc</module>
     <module>kudu</module>
     <!--<module>mapkeeper</module>-->
     <module>memcached</module>
     <module>mongodb</module>
     <module>nosqldb</module>
     <module>orientdb</module>
     <module>redis</module>
     <module>s3</module>
     <module>solr</module>
     <module>tarantool</module>
     <!--<module>voldemort</module>-->
   </modules>
 
   <build>
     <pluginManagement>
       <plugins>
         <plugin>
           <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
           <artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
           <version>2.15</version>
         </plugin>
       </plugins>
     </pluginManagement>
     <plugins>
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
         <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
         <version>3.3</version>
         <configuration>
           <source>1.7</source>
           <target>1.7</target>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
       <plugin>
         <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
         <artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
         <executions>
           <execution>
             <id>validate</id>
             <phase>validate</phase>
             <goals>
               <goal>check</goal>
             </goals>
             <configuration>
               <configLocation>checkstyle.xml</configLocation>
             </configuration>
           </execution>
         </executions>
       </plugin>
     </plugins>
   </build>
 </project>