diff --git a/COMPILING.txt b/COMPILING.txt
index 9abf0b21..4b61b11b 100644
--- a/COMPILING.txt
+++ b/COMPILING.txt
@@ -27,8 +27,8 @@ under the License.
 
 Compiling Sqoop requires the following tools:
 
-* Apache ant (1.7.1) or Gradle (3.5.1)
-* Java JDK 1.6
+* Apache ant (1.9.7) or Gradle (3.5.1)
+* Java JDK 1.8
 
 Additionally, building the documentation requires these tools:
 
diff --git a/README.txt b/README.txt
index b8f0a7a2..c27d912e 100644
--- a/README.txt
+++ b/README.txt
@@ -20,8 +20,8 @@ available in the +docs/+ directory.
 
 Compiling Sqoop requires the following tools:
 
-* Apache ant (1.7.1)
-* Java JDK 1.6
+* Apache ant (1.9.7)
+* Java JDK 1.8
 
 Additionally, building the documentation requires these tools:
 
diff --git a/build.gradle b/build.gradle
index 8b8b5557..e2c4479d 100644
--- a/build.gradle
+++ b/build.gradle
@@ -176,7 +176,7 @@ tasks.withType(Test) {
 
     minHeapSize = "512m"
     maxHeapSize = "5120m"
-    jvmArgs '-Xmx5012m', '-XX:PermSize=256m', '-XX:MaxPermSize=512m', "-da:org.apache.hadoop.hive.thrift.HadoopThriftAuthBridge"
+    jvmArgs '-Xmx5012m', "-da:org.apache.hadoop.hive.thrift.HadoopThriftAuthBridge"
     forkEvery 1
 
     dependsOn buildFolder
diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index 0ae729bc..8115b026 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -115,8 +115,8 @@
   <property name="src.tar.file" location="${build.dir}/${src.artifact.name}.tar.gz" />
 
   <!-- compilation -->
-  <property name="targetJavaVersion" value="1.7" />
-  <property name="sourceJavaVersion" value="1.7" />
+  <property name="targetJavaVersion" value="1.8" />
+  <property name="sourceJavaVersion" value="1.8" />
   <property name="javac.deprecation" value="off"/>
   <property name="javac.debug" value="on"/>
   <property name="build.encoding" value="ISO-8859-1"/>
diff --git a/gradle.properties b/gradle.properties
index a571e6cb..07224905 100644
--- a/gradle.properties
+++ b/gradle.properties
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 
 # This properties file lists the versions of the various artifacts we use in gradle.
 
-javaSourceCompatibilityVersion=1.7
+javaSourceCompatibilityVersion=1.8
 
 avroVersion=1.8.1
 kitedataVersion=1.1.0
diff --git a/src/docs/man/sqoop.txt b/src/docs/man/sqoop.txt
index 7977e130..2bcf8438 100644
--- a/src/docs/man/sqoop.txt
+++ b/src/docs/man/sqoop.txt
@@ -41,8 +41,8 @@ JAVA_HOME::
   As part of its import process, Sqoop generates and compiles Java code
   by invoking the Java compiler *javac*(1). As a result, JAVA_HOME must
   be set to the location of your JDK (note: This cannot just be a JRE).
-  e.g., +/usr/java/default+. Hadoop (and Sqoop) requires Sun Java 1.6 which
-  can be downloaded from http://java.sun.com.
+  e.g., +/usr/java/default+. Hadoop (and Sqoop) requires Oracle Java 1.8 which
+  can be downloaded from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/index.html.
 
 HADOOP_COMMON_HOME::
   The location of the Hadoop Common files (specifically the bin/hadoop executable).