diff --git a/jvm-packages/pom.xml b/jvm-packages/pom.xml
index 5853c960f..cecf1fa59 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/pom.xml
+++ b/jvm-packages/pom.xml
@@ -217,7 +217,7 @@
         <dependency>
             <groupId>org.scalatest</groupId>
             <artifactId>scalatest_${scala.binary.version}</artifactId>
-            <version>2.2.6</version>
+            <version>3.0.0</version>
             <scope>test</scope>
         </dependency>
     </dependencies>
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkModelTuningTool.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkModelTuningTool.scala
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e7a5e7640
--- /dev/null
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkModelTuningTool.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,206 @@
+/*
+ Copyright (c) 2014 by Contributors
+
+ 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.
+ */
+
+package ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.example.spark
+
+
+import scala.collection.mutable
+import scala.collection.mutable.ListBuffer
+import scala.io.Source
+
+import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark.{XGBoostEstimator, XGBoost}
+import org.apache.spark.ml.Pipeline
+import org.apache.spark.ml.evaluation.RegressionEvaluator
+import org.apache.spark.ml.feature.{VectorAssembler, StringIndexer}
+import org.apache.spark.ml.tuning._
+import org.apache.spark.sql.{Dataset, DataFrame, SparkSession}
+
+case class SalesRecord(storeId: Int, daysOfWeek: Int, date: String, sales: Int, customers: Int,
+                       open: Int, promo: Int, stateHoliday: String, schoolHoliday: String)
+
+case class Store(storeId: Int, storeType: String, assortment: String, competitionDistance: Int,
+                 competitionOpenSinceMonth: Int, competitionOpenSinceYear: Int, promo2: Int,
+                 promo2SinceWeek: Int, promo2SinceYear: Int, promoInterval: String)
+
+object Main {
+
+  private def parseStoreFile(storeFilePath: String): List[Store] = {
+    var isHeader = true
+    val storeInstances = new ListBuffer[Store]
+    for (line <- Source.fromFile(storeFilePath).getLines()) {
+      if (isHeader) {
+        isHeader = false
+      } else {
+        try {
+          val strArray = line.split(",")
+          if (strArray.length == 10) {
+            val Array(storeIdStr, storeTypeStr, assortmentStr, competitionDistanceStr,
+            competitionOpenSinceMonthStr, competitionOpenSinceYearStr, promo2Str,
+            promo2SinceWeekStr, promo2SinceYearStr, promoIntervalStr) = line.split(",")
+            storeInstances += Store(storeIdStr.toInt, storeTypeStr, assortmentStr,
+              if (competitionDistanceStr == "") -1 else competitionDistanceStr.toInt,
+              if (competitionOpenSinceMonthStr == "" ) -1 else competitionOpenSinceMonthStr.toInt,
+              if (competitionOpenSinceYearStr == "" ) -1 else competitionOpenSinceYearStr.toInt,
+              promo2Str.toInt,
+              if (promo2Str == "0") -1 else promo2SinceWeekStr.toInt,
+              if (promo2Str == "0") -1 else promo2SinceYearStr.toInt,
+              promoIntervalStr.replace("\"", ""))
+          } else {
+            val Array(storeIdStr, storeTypeStr, assortmentStr, competitionDistanceStr,
+            competitionOpenSinceMonthStr, competitionOpenSinceYearStr, promo2Str,
+            promo2SinceWeekStr, promo2SinceYearStr, firstMonth, secondMonth, thirdMonth,
+            forthMonth) = line.split(",")
+            storeInstances += Store(storeIdStr.toInt, storeTypeStr, assortmentStr,
+              if (competitionDistanceStr == "") -1 else competitionDistanceStr.toInt,
+              if (competitionOpenSinceMonthStr == "" ) -1 else competitionOpenSinceMonthStr.toInt,
+              if (competitionOpenSinceYearStr == "" ) -1 else competitionOpenSinceYearStr.toInt,
+              promo2Str.toInt,
+              if (promo2Str == "0") -1 else promo2SinceWeekStr.toInt,
+              if (promo2Str == "0") -1 else promo2SinceYearStr.toInt,
+              firstMonth.replace("\"", "") + "," + secondMonth + "," + thirdMonth + "," +
+                forthMonth.replace("\"", ""))
+          }
+        } catch {
+          case e: Exception =>
+            e.printStackTrace()
+            sys.exit(1)
+        }
+      }
+    }
+    storeInstances.toList
+  }
+
+  private def parseTrainingFile(trainingPath: String): List[SalesRecord] = {
+    var isHeader = true
+    val records = new ListBuffer[SalesRecord]
+    for (line <- Source.fromFile(trainingPath).getLines()) {
+      if (isHeader) {
+        isHeader = false
+      } else {
+        val Array(storeIdStr, daysOfWeekStr, dateStr, salesStr, customerStr, openStr, promoStr,
+        stateHolidayStr, schoolHolidayStr) = line.split(",")
+        val salesRecord = SalesRecord(storeIdStr.toInt, daysOfWeekStr.toInt, dateStr,
+          salesStr.toInt, customerStr.toInt, openStr.toInt, promoStr.toInt, stateHolidayStr,
+          schoolHolidayStr)
+        records += salesRecord
+      }
+    }
+    records.toList
+  }
+
+  private def featureEngineering(ds: DataFrame): DataFrame = {
+    import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
+    import ds.sparkSession.implicits._
+    val stateHolidayIndexer = new StringIndexer()
+      .setInputCol("stateHoliday")
+      .setOutputCol("stateHolidayIndex")
+    val schoolHolidayIndexer = new StringIndexer()
+      .setInputCol("schoolHoliday")
+      .setOutputCol("schoolHolidayIndex")
+    val storeTypeIndexer = new StringIndexer()
+      .setInputCol("storeType")
+      .setOutputCol("storeTypeIndex")
+    val assortmentIndexer = new StringIndexer()
+      .setInputCol("assortment")
+      .setOutputCol("assortmentIndex")
+    val promoInterval = new StringIndexer()
+      .setInputCol("promoInterval")
+      .setOutputCol("promoIntervalIndex")
+    val filteredDS = ds.filter($"sales" > 0).filter($"open" > 0)
+    // parse date
+    val dsWithDayCol =
+      filteredDS.withColumn("day", udf((dateStr: String) =>
+        dateStr.split("-")(2).toInt).apply(col("date")))
+    val dsWithMonthCol =
+      dsWithDayCol.withColumn("month", udf((dateStr: String) =>
+        dateStr.split("-")(1).toInt).apply(col("date")))
+    val dsWithYearCol =
+      dsWithMonthCol.withColumn("year", udf((dateStr: String) =>
+        dateStr.split("-")(0).toInt).apply(col("date")))
+    val dsWithLogSales = dsWithYearCol.withColumn("logSales",
+      udf((sales: Int) => math.log(sales)).apply(col("sales")))
+
+    // fill with mean values
+    val meanCompetitionDistance = dsWithLogSales.select(avg("competitionDistance")).first()(0).
+      asInstanceOf[Double]
+    println("====" + meanCompetitionDistance)
+    val finalDS = dsWithLogSales.withColumn("transformedCompetitionDistance",
+      udf((distance: Int) => if (distance > 0) distance.toDouble else meanCompetitionDistance).
+        apply(col("competitionDistance")))
+
+    val vectorAssembler = new VectorAssembler()
+      .setInputCols(Array("storeId", "daysOfWeek", "promo", "competitionDistance", "promo2", "day",
+        "month", "year", "transformedCompetitionDistance", "stateHolidayIndex",
+        "schoolHolidayIndex", "storeTypeIndex", "assortmentIndex", "promoIntervalIndex"))
+      .setOutputCol("features")
+
+    val pipeline = new Pipeline().setStages(
+      Array(stateHolidayIndexer, schoolHolidayIndexer, storeTypeIndexer, assortmentIndexer,
+        promoInterval, vectorAssembler))
+
+    pipeline.fit(finalDS).transform(finalDS).
+      drop("stateHoliday", "schoolHoliday", "storeType", "assortment", "promoInterval", "sales",
+        "promo2SinceWeek", "customers", "promoInterval", "competitionOpenSinceYear",
+        "competitionOpenSinceMonth", "promo2SinceYear", "competitionDistance", "date")
+  }
+
+  private def crossValidation(
+                               xgboostParam: Map[String, Any],
+                               trainingData: Dataset[_]): TrainValidationSplitModel = {
+    val xgbEstimator = new XGBoostEstimator(xgboostParam).setFeaturesCol("features").
+      setLabelCol("logSales")
+    val paramGrid = new ParamGridBuilder()
+      .addGrid(xgbEstimator.round, Array(20, 50))
+      .addGrid(xgbEstimator.eta, Array(0.1, 0.4))
+      .build()
+    val tv = new TrainValidationSplit()
+      .setEstimator(xgbEstimator)
+      .setEvaluator(new RegressionEvaluator().setLabelCol("logSales"))
+      .setEstimatorParamMaps(paramGrid)
+      .setTrainRatio(0.8)  // Use 3+ in practice
+    tv.fit(trainingData)
+  }
+
+  def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {
+    val sparkSession = SparkSession.builder().appName("rosseman").getOrCreate()
+    import sparkSession.implicits._
+
+    // parse training file to data frame
+    val trainingPath = args(0)
+    val allSalesRecords = parseTrainingFile(trainingPath)
+    // create dataset
+    val salesRecordsDF = allSalesRecords.toDF
+
+    // parse store file to data frame
+    val storeFilePath = args(1)
+    val allStores = parseStoreFile(storeFilePath)
+    val storesDS = allStores.toDF()
+
+    val fullDataset = salesRecordsDF.join(storesDS, "storeId")
+    val featureEngineeredDF = featureEngineering(fullDataset)
+    // prediction
+    val params = new mutable.HashMap[String, Any]()
+    params += "eta" -> 0.1
+    params += "max_depth" -> 6
+    params += "silent" -> 1
+    params += "ntreelimit" -> 1000
+    params += "objective" -> "reg:linear"
+    params += "subsample" -> 0.8
+    params += "round" -> 100
+
+    val bestModel = crossValidation(params.toMap, featureEngineeredDF)
+  }
+}
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkWithDataFrame.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkWithDataFrame.scala
index 0130a1daa..8d5b6d0bf 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkWithDataFrame.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkWithDataFrame.scala
@@ -20,39 +20,38 @@ import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.Booster
 import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark.{XGBoost, DataUtils}
 import org.apache.spark.mllib.util.MLUtils
 import org.apache.spark.sql.types._
-import org.apache.spark.sql.{SQLContext, Row}
+import org.apache.spark.sql.{SparkSession, SQLContext, Row}
 import org.apache.spark.{SparkContext, SparkConf}
 
 object SparkWithDataFrame {
   def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {
-    if (args.length != 5) {
+    if (args.length != 4) {
       println(
-        "usage: program num_of_rounds num_workers training_path test_path model_path")
+        "usage: program num_of_rounds num_workers training_path test_path")
       sys.exit(1)
     }
     // create SparkSession
     val sparkConf = new SparkConf().setAppName("XGBoost-spark-example")
       .set("spark.serializer", "org.apache.spark.serializer.KryoSerializer")
     sparkConf.registerKryoClasses(Array(classOf[Booster]))
-    val sqlContext = new SQLContext(new SparkContext(sparkConf))
+    // val sqlContext = new SQLContext(new SparkContext(sparkConf))
+    val sparkSession = SparkSession.builder().config(sparkConf).getOrCreate()
     // create training and testing dataframes
+    val numRound = args(0).toInt
     val inputTrainPath = args(2)
     val inputTestPath = args(3)
-    val outputModelPath = args(4)
-    // number of iterations
-    val numRound = args(0).toInt
-    import DataUtils._
-    val trainRDDOfRows = MLUtils.loadLibSVMFile(sqlContext.sparkContext, inputTrainPath).
+    // build dataset
+    val trainRDDOfRows = MLUtils.loadLibSVMFile(sparkSession.sparkContext, inputTrainPath).
       map{ labeledPoint => Row(labeledPoint.features, labeledPoint.label)}
-    val trainDF = sqlContext.createDataFrame(trainRDDOfRows, StructType(
+    val trainDF = sparkSession.createDataFrame(trainRDDOfRows, StructType(
       Array(StructField("features", ArrayType(FloatType)), StructField("label", IntegerType))))
-    val testRDDOfRows = MLUtils.loadLibSVMFile(sqlContext.sparkContext, inputTestPath).
+    val testRDDOfRows = MLUtils.loadLibSVMFile(sparkSession.sparkContext, inputTestPath).
       zipWithIndex().map{ case (labeledPoint, id) =>
       Row(id, labeledPoint.features, labeledPoint.label)}
-    val testDF = sqlContext.createDataFrame(testRDDOfRows, StructType(
+    val testDF = sparkSession.createDataFrame(testRDDOfRows, StructType(
       Array(StructField("id", LongType),
         StructField("features", ArrayType(FloatType)), StructField("label", IntegerType))))
-    // training parameters
+    // start training
     val paramMap = List(
       "eta" -> 0.1f,
       "max_depth" -> 2,
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkWithRDD.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkWithRDD.scala
index 851cffea9..9c517da94 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkWithRDD.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-example/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/example/spark/SparkWithRDD.scala
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ object SparkWithRDD {
       "eta" -> 0.1f,
       "max_depth" -> 2,
       "objective" -> "binary:logistic").toMap
-    val xgboostModel = XGBoost.trainWithRDD(trainRDD, paramMap, numRound, nWorkers = args(1).toInt,
+    val xgboostModel = XGBoost.train(trainRDD, paramMap, numRound, nWorkers = args(1).toInt,
       useExternalMemory = true)
     xgboostModel.booster.predict(new DMatrix(testSet))
     // save model to HDFS path
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoost.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoost.scala
index a04f10fe9..18b89dcac 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoost.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoost.scala
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.{XGBoost => SXGBoost, _}
 import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory
 import org.apache.hadoop.fs.{FSDataInputStream, Path}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.feature.{LabeledPoint => MLLabeledPoint}
-import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.{DenseVector, SparseVector}
+import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.SparseVector
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset
 import org.apache.spark.{SparkContext, TaskContext}
@@ -67,33 +67,36 @@ object XGBoost extends Serializable {
     }
   }
 
+  private def repartitionData(trainingData: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], numWorkers: Int):
+      RDD[MLLabeledPoint] = {
+    if (numWorkers != trainingData.partitions.length) {
+      logger.info(s"repartitioning training set to $numWorkers partitions")
+      trainingData.repartition(numWorkers)
+    } else {
+      trainingData
+    }
+  }
+
   private[spark] def buildDistributedBoosters(
-      trainingData: RDD[MLLabeledPoint],
+      trainingSet: RDD[MLLabeledPoint],
       xgBoostConfMap: Map[String, Any],
       rabitEnv: mutable.Map[String, String],
       numWorkers: Int, round: Int, obj: ObjectiveTrait, eval: EvalTrait,
       useExternalMemory: Boolean, missing: Float = Float.NaN): RDD[Booster] = {
     import DataUtils._
-    val partitionedData = {
-      if (numWorkers != trainingData.partitions.length) {
-        logger.info(s"repartitioning training set to $numWorkers partitions")
-        trainingData.repartition(numWorkers)
-      } else {
-        trainingData
-      }
-    }
-    val appName = partitionedData.context.appName
+    val partitionedTrainingSet = repartitionData(trainingSet, numWorkers)
+    val appName = partitionedTrainingSet.context.appName
     // to workaround the empty partitions in training dataset,
     // this might not be the best efficient implementation, see
     // (https://github.com/dmlc/xgboost/issues/1277)
-    partitionedData.mapPartitions {
+    partitionedTrainingSet.mapPartitions {
       trainingSamples =>
         rabitEnv.put("DMLC_TASK_ID", TaskContext.getPartitionId().toString)
         Rabit.init(rabitEnv.asJava)
         var booster: Booster = null
         if (trainingSamples.hasNext) {
           val cacheFileName: String = {
-            if (useExternalMemory && trainingSamples.hasNext) {
+            if (useExternalMemory) {
               s"$appName-${TaskContext.get().stageId()}-" +
                 s"dtrain_cache-${TaskContext.getPartitionId()}"
             } else {
@@ -146,14 +149,24 @@ object XGBoost extends Serializable {
       featureCol: String = "features",
       labelCol: String = "label"): XGBoostModel = {
     require(nWorkers > 0, "you must specify more than 0 workers")
-    val estimator = new XGBoostEstimator(params, round, nWorkers, obj, eval,
-          useExternalMemory, missing)
-    estimator.setFeaturesCol(featureCol).setLabelCol(labelCol).fit(trainingData)
+    val estimator = new XGBoostEstimator(params)
+    // assigning general parameters
+    estimator.
+      set(estimator.useExternalMemory, useExternalMemory).
+      set(estimator.round, round).
+      set(estimator.nWorkers, nWorkers).
+      set(estimator.customObj, obj).
+      set(estimator.customEval, eval).
+      set(estimator.missing, missing).
+      setFeaturesCol(featureCol).
+      setLabelCol(labelCol).
+      fit(trainingData)
   }
 
-  private[spark] def isClassificationTask(objective: Option[Any]): Boolean = {
-    objective.isDefined && {
-      val objStr = objective.get.toString
+  private[spark] def isClassificationTask(paramsMap: Map[String, Any]): Boolean = {
+    val objective = paramsMap.getOrElse("objective", paramsMap.getOrElse("obj_type", null))
+    objective != null && {
+      val objStr = objective.toString
       objStr == "classification" || (!objStr.startsWith("reg:") && objStr != "count:poisson" &&
         objStr != "rank:pairwise")
     }
@@ -162,7 +175,7 @@ object XGBoost extends Serializable {
   /**
    *
    * @param trainingData the trainingset represented as RDD
-   * @param configMap Map containing the configuration entries
+   * @param params Map containing the configuration entries
    * @param round the number of iterations
    * @param nWorkers the number of xgboost workers, 0 by default which means that the number of
    *                 workers equals to the partition number of trainingData RDD
@@ -174,19 +187,40 @@ object XGBoost extends Serializable {
    * @throws ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.java.XGBoostError when the model training is failed
    * @return XGBoostModel when successful training
    */
-  @deprecated(since = "0.7", message = "this method is deprecated since 0.7, users are encouraged" +
-    " to switch to trainWithRDD")
-  def train(trainingData: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], configMap: Map[String, Any], round: Int,
+  def train(
+      trainingData: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], params: Map[String, Any], round: Int,
       nWorkers: Int, obj: ObjectiveTrait = null, eval: EvalTrait = null,
       useExternalMemory: Boolean = false, missing: Float = Float.NaN): XGBoostModel = {
     require(nWorkers > 0, "you must specify more than 0 workers")
-    trainWithRDD(trainingData, configMap, round, nWorkers, obj, eval, useExternalMemory, missing)
+    trainWithRDD(trainingData, params, round, nWorkers, obj, eval, useExternalMemory, missing)
+  }
+
+  private def overrideParamMapAccordingtoTaskCPUs(
+      params: Map[String, Any],
+      sc: SparkContext): Map[String, Any] = {
+    val coresPerTask = sc.getConf.get("spark.task.cpus", "1").toInt
+    var overridedParams = params
+    if (overridedParams.contains("nthread")) {
+      val nThread = overridedParams("nthread").toString.toInt
+      require(nThread <= coresPerTask,
+        s"the nthread configuration ($nThread) must be no larger than " +
+          s"spark.task.cpus ($coresPerTask)")
+    } else {
+      overridedParams = params + ("nthread" -> coresPerTask)
+    }
+    overridedParams
+  }
+
+  private def startTracker(nWorkers: Int): RabitTracker = {
+    val tracker = new RabitTracker(nWorkers)
+    require(tracker.start(), "FAULT: Failed to start tracker")
+    tracker
   }
 
   /**
    *
    * @param trainingData the trainingset represented as RDD
-   * @param configMap Map containing the configuration entries
+   * @param params Map containing the configuration entries
    * @param round the number of iterations
    * @param nWorkers the number of xgboost workers, 0 by default which means that the number of
    *                 workers equals to the partition number of trainingData RDD
@@ -199,28 +233,18 @@ object XGBoost extends Serializable {
    * @return XGBoostModel when successful training
    */
   @throws(classOf[XGBoostError])
-  def trainWithRDD(trainingData: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], configMap: Map[String, Any], round: Int,
+  def trainWithRDD(
+      trainingData: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], params: Map[String, Any], round: Int,
       nWorkers: Int, obj: ObjectiveTrait = null, eval: EvalTrait = null,
       useExternalMemory: Boolean = false, missing: Float = Float.NaN): XGBoostModel = {
     require(nWorkers > 0, "you must specify more than 0 workers")
     if (obj != null) {
-      require(configMap.get("obj_type").isDefined, "parameter \"obj_type\" is not defined," +
+      require(params.get("obj_type").isDefined, "parameter \"obj_type\" is not defined," +
         " you have to specify the objective type as classification or regression with a" +
         " customized objective function")
     }
-    val tracker = new RabitTracker(nWorkers)
-    implicit val sc = trainingData.sparkContext
-    var overridedConfMap = configMap
-    if (overridedConfMap.contains("nthread")) {
-      val nThread = overridedConfMap("nthread").toString.toInt
-      val coresPerTask = sc.getConf.get("spark.task.cpus", "1").toInt
-      require(nThread <= coresPerTask,
-        s"the nthread configuration ($nThread) must be no larger than " +
-          s"spark.task.cpus ($coresPerTask)")
-    } else {
-      overridedConfMap = configMap + ("nthread" -> sc.getConf.get("spark.task.cpus", "1").toInt)
-    }
-    require(tracker.start(), "FAULT: Failed to start tracker")
+    val tracker = startTracker(nWorkers)
+    val overridedConfMap = overrideParamMapAccordingtoTaskCPUs(params, trainingData.sparkContext)
     val boosters = buildDistributedBoosters(trainingData, overridedConfMap,
       tracker.getWorkerEnvs.asScala, nWorkers, round, obj, eval, useExternalMemory, missing)
     val sparkJobThread = new Thread() {
@@ -230,16 +254,19 @@ object XGBoost extends Serializable {
       }
     }
     sparkJobThread.start()
-    val returnVal = tracker.waitFor()
-    logger.info(s"Rabit returns with exit code $returnVal")
-    if (returnVal == 0) {
-      convertBoosterToXGBoostModel(boosters.first(),
-        isClassificationTask(
-          if (obj == null) {
-            configMap.get("objective")
-          } else {
-            configMap.get("obj_type")
-          }))
+    val isClsTask = isClassificationTask(params)
+    val trackerReturnVal = tracker.waitFor()
+    logger.info(s"Rabit returns with exit code $trackerReturnVal")
+    postTrackerReturnProcessing(trackerReturnVal, boosters, overridedConfMap, sparkJobThread,
+      isClsTask)
+  }
+
+  private def postTrackerReturnProcessing(
+      trackerReturnVal: Int, distributedBoosters: RDD[Booster],
+      configMap: Map[String, Any], sparkJobThread: Thread, isClassificationTask: Boolean):
+    XGBoostModel = {
+    if (trackerReturnVal == 0) {
+      convertBoosterToXGBoostModel(distributedBoosters.first(), isClassificationTask)
     } else {
       try {
         if (sparkJobThread.isAlive) {
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostClassificationModel.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostClassificationModel.scala
index d0ac2a75e..9d65d9af6 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostClassificationModel.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostClassificationModel.scala
@@ -18,19 +18,22 @@ package ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark
 
 import scala.collection.mutable
 
-import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.{Booster, DMatrix}
-import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.{Vector => MLVector, DenseVector => MLDenseVector}
+import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.Booster
+import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.{DenseVector => MLDenseVector, Vector => MLVector}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.param.{DoubleArrayParam, Param, ParamMap}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.util.Identifiable
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
 import org.apache.spark.sql.types._
-import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset, Row}
+import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset}
 
 class XGBoostClassificationModel private[spark](
-    override val uid: String, _booster: Booster)
-    extends XGBoostModel(_booster) {
+    override val uid: String, booster: Booster)
+    extends XGBoostModel(booster) {
 
-  def this(_booster: Booster) = this(Identifiable.randomUID("XGBoostClassificationModel"), _booster)
+  def this(booster: Booster) = this(Identifiable.randomUID("XGBoostClassificationModel"), booster)
+
+  // only called in copy()
+  def this(uid: String) = this(uid, null)
 
   // scalastyle:off
 
@@ -57,16 +60,28 @@ class XGBoostClassificationModel private[spark](
 
   // scalastyle:on
 
+  // generate dataframe containing raw prediction column which is typed as Vector
   private def predictRaw(
       testSet: Dataset[_],
       temporalColName: Option[String] = None,
       forceTransformedScore: Option[Boolean] = None): DataFrame = {
     val predictRDD = produceRowRDD(testSet, forceTransformedScore.getOrElse($(outputMargin)))
-    testSet.sparkSession.createDataFrame(predictRDD, schema = {
-      StructType(testSet.schema.add(StructField(
-        temporalColName.getOrElse($(rawPredictionCol)),
-        ArrayType(FloatType, containsNull = false), nullable = false)))
+    val colName = temporalColName.getOrElse($(rawPredictionCol))
+    val tempColName = colName + "_arraytype"
+    val dsWithArrayTypedRawPredCol = testSet.sparkSession.createDataFrame(predictRDD, schema = {
+      testSet.schema.add(tempColName, ArrayType(FloatType, containsNull = false))
     })
+    val transformerForProbabilitiesArray =
+      (rawPredArray: mutable.WrappedArray[Float]) =>
+        if (numClasses == 2) {
+          Array(1 - rawPredArray(0), rawPredArray(0)).map(_.toDouble)
+        } else {
+          rawPredArray.map(_.toDouble).array
+        }
+    dsWithArrayTypedRawPredCol.withColumn(colName,
+      udf((rawPredArray: mutable.WrappedArray[Float]) =>
+        new MLDenseVector(transformerForProbabilitiesArray(rawPredArray))).apply(col(tempColName))).
+      drop(tempColName)
   }
 
   private def fromFeatureToPrediction(testSet: Dataset[_]): Dataset[_] = {
@@ -77,28 +92,28 @@ class XGBoostClassificationModel private[spark](
     tempDF.select(allColumnNames(0), allColumnNames.tail: _*)
   }
 
-  private def argMax(vector: mutable.WrappedArray[Float]): Double = {
+  private def argMax(vector: Array[Double]): Double = {
     vector.zipWithIndex.maxBy(_._1)._2
   }
 
-  private def raw2prediction(rawPrediction: mutable.WrappedArray[Float]): Double = {
+  private def raw2prediction(rawPrediction: MLDenseVector): Double = {
     if (!isDefined(thresholds)) {
-      argMax(rawPrediction)
+      argMax(rawPrediction.values)
     } else {
       probability2prediction(rawPrediction)
     }
   }
 
-  private def probability2prediction(probability: mutable.WrappedArray[Float]): Double = {
+  private def probability2prediction(probability: MLDenseVector): Double = {
     if (!isDefined(thresholds)) {
-      argMax(probability)
+      argMax(probability.values)
     } else {
       val thresholds: Array[Double] = getThresholds
-      val scaledProbability: mutable.WrappedArray[Double] =
-        probability.zip(thresholds).map { case (p, t) =>
+      val scaledProbability =
+        probability.values.zip(thresholds).map { case (p, t) =>
           if (t == 0.0) Double.PositiveInfinity else p / t
         }
-      argMax(scaledProbability.map(_.toFloat))
+      argMax(scaledProbability)
     }
   }
 
@@ -144,7 +159,9 @@ class XGBoostClassificationModel private[spark](
   def numClasses: Int = numOfClasses
 
   override def copy(extra: ParamMap): XGBoostClassificationModel = {
-    defaultCopy(extra)
+    val clsModel = defaultCopy(extra).asInstanceOf[XGBoostClassificationModel]
+    clsModel._booster = booster
+    clsModel
   }
 
   override protected def predict(features: MLVector): Double = {
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostEstimator.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostEstimator.scala
index 67d3fa4c5..1115f3380 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostEstimator.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostEstimator.scala
@@ -16,38 +16,97 @@
 
 package ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark
 
-import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.{EvalTrait, ObjectiveTrait}
+import scala.collection.mutable
+
+import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark.params.{BoosterParams, GeneralParams, LearningTaskParams}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.Predictor
 import org.apache.spark.ml.feature.LabeledPoint
-import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.{Vector => MLVector, VectorUDT}
-import org.apache.spark.ml.param.ParamMap
+import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.{Vector => MLVector}
+import org.apache.spark.ml.param._
 import org.apache.spark.ml.util.Identifiable
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
-import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{StructType, DoubleType}
+import org.apache.spark.sql.types.DoubleType
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{Dataset, Row}
 
 /**
  * the estimator wrapping XGBoost to produce a training model
  *
  * @param xgboostParams the parameters configuring XGBoost
- * @param round the number of iterations to train
- * @param nWorkers the total number of workers of xgboost
- * @param obj the customized objective function, default to be null and using the default in model
- * @param eval the customized eval function, default to be null and using the default in model
- * @param useExternalMemory whether to use external memory when training
- * @param missing the value taken as missing
  */
 class XGBoostEstimator private[spark](
-    override val uid: String, xgboostParams: Map[String, Any], round: Int, nWorkers: Int,
-    obj: ObjectiveTrait, eval: EvalTrait, useExternalMemory: Boolean, missing: Float)
-  extends Predictor[MLVector, XGBoostEstimator, XGBoostModel] {
+  override val uid: String, private[spark] var xgboostParams: Map[String, Any])
+  extends Predictor[MLVector, XGBoostEstimator, XGBoostModel]
+  with LearningTaskParams with GeneralParams with BoosterParams {
 
-  def this(xgboostParams: Map[String, Any], round: Int, nWorkers: Int,
-           obj: ObjectiveTrait = null,
-           eval: EvalTrait = null, useExternalMemory: Boolean = false, missing: Float = Float.NaN) =
-    this(Identifiable.randomUID("XGBoostEstimator"), xgboostParams: Map[String, Any], round: Int,
-      nWorkers: Int, obj: ObjectiveTrait, eval: EvalTrait, useExternalMemory: Boolean,
-      missing: Float)
+  def this(xgboostParams: Map[String, Any]) =
+    this(Identifiable.randomUID("XGBoostEstimator"), xgboostParams: Map[String, Any])
+
+  def this(uid: String) = this(uid, Map[String, Any]())
+
+
+  // called in fromXGBParamMapToParams only when eval_metric is not defined
+  private def setupDefaultEvalMetric(): String = {
+    val objFunc = xgboostParams.getOrElse("objective", xgboostParams.getOrElse("obj_type", null))
+    if (objFunc == null) {
+      "rmse"
+    } else {
+      // compute default metric based on specified objective
+      val isClassificationTask = XGBoost.isClassificationTask(xgboostParams)
+      if (!isClassificationTask) {
+        // default metric for regression or ranking
+        if (objFunc.toString.startsWith("rank")) {
+          "map"
+        } else {
+          "rmse"
+        }
+      } else {
+        // default metric for classification
+        if (objFunc.toString.startsWith("multi")) {
+          // multi
+          "merror"
+        } else {
+          // binary
+          "error"
+        }
+      }
+    }
+  }
+
+  private def fromXGBParamMapToParams(): Unit = {
+    for ((paramName, paramValue) <- xgboostParams) {
+      params.find(_.name == paramName) match {
+        case None =>
+        case Some(_: DoubleParam) =>
+          set(paramName, paramValue.toString.toDouble)
+        case Some(_: BooleanParam) =>
+          set(paramName, paramValue.toString.toBoolean)
+        case Some(_: IntParam) =>
+          set(paramName, paramValue.toString.toInt)
+        case Some(_: FloatParam) =>
+          set(paramName, paramValue.toString.toFloat)
+        case Some(_: Param[_]) =>
+          set(paramName, paramValue)
+      }
+    }
+    if (xgboostParams.get("eval_metric").isEmpty) {
+      set("eval_metric", setupDefaultEvalMetric())
+    }
+  }
+
+  fromXGBParamMapToParams()
+
+  // only called when XGBParamMap is empty, i.e. in the constructor this(String)
+  // TODO: refactor to be functional
+  private def fromParamsToXGBParamMap(): Map[String, Any] = {
+    require(xgboostParams.isEmpty, "fromParamsToXGBParamMap can only be called when" +
+      " XGBParamMap is empty, i.e. in the constructor this(String)")
+    val xgbParamMap = new mutable.HashMap[String, Any]()
+    for (param <- params) {
+      xgbParamMap += param.name -> $(param)
+    }
+    xgboostParams = xgbParamMap.toMap
+    xgbParamMap.toMap
+  }
 
   /**
    * produce a XGBoostModel by fitting the given dataset
@@ -59,16 +118,14 @@ class XGBoostEstimator private[spark](
         LabeledPoint(label, feature)
     }
     transformSchema(trainingSet.schema, logging = true)
-    val trainedModel = XGBoost.trainWithRDD(instances, xgboostParams, round, nWorkers, obj,
-      eval, useExternalMemory, missing).setParent(this)
+    val trainedModel = XGBoost.trainWithRDD(instances, xgboostParams, $(round), $(nWorkers),
+      $(customObj), $(customEval), $(useExternalMemory), $(missing)).setParent(this)
     val returnedModel = copyValues(trainedModel)
-    if (XGBoost.isClassificationTask(
-      if (obj == null) xgboostParams.get("objective") else xgboostParams.get("obj_type"))) {
+    if (XGBoost.isClassificationTask(xgboostParams)) {
       val numClass = {
         if (xgboostParams.contains("num_class")) {
           xgboostParams("num_class").asInstanceOf[Int]
-        }
-        else {
+        } else {
           2
         }
       }
@@ -78,6 +135,11 @@ class XGBoostEstimator private[spark](
   }
 
   override def copy(extra: ParamMap): XGBoostEstimator = {
-    defaultCopy(extra)
+    val est = defaultCopy(extra).asInstanceOf[XGBoostEstimator]
+    // we need to synchronize the params here instead of in the constructor
+    // because we cannot guarantee that params (default implementation) is initialized fully
+    // before the other params
+    est.fromParamsToXGBParamMap()
+    est
   }
 }
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostModel.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostModel.scala
index da50309db..2d76e6596 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostModel.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostModel.scala
@@ -27,10 +27,10 @@ import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.{DenseVector => MLDenseVector, Vector => MLVec
 import org.apache.spark.ml.param.{Param, Params}
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql._
-import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{FloatType, ArrayType, DataType}
+import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{ArrayType, FloatType}
 import org.apache.spark.{SparkContext, TaskContext}
 
-abstract class XGBoostModel(_booster: Booster)
+abstract class XGBoostModel(protected var _booster: Booster)
   extends PredictionModel[MLVector, XGBoostModel] with Serializable with Params {
 
   def setLabelCol(name: String): XGBoostModel = set(labelCol, name)
@@ -74,13 +74,28 @@ abstract class XGBoostModel(_booster: Booster)
    * @param evalFunc the customized evaluation function, null by default to use the default metric
    *             of model
    * @param iter the current iteration, -1 to be null to use customized evaluation functions
-   * @param useExternalCache if use external cache
    * @return the average metric over all partitions
    */
+  @deprecated(message = "this API is deprecated from 0.7," +
+    " use eval(booster: Booster, evalDataset: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], evalName: String,iter: Int) or" +
+    " eval(booster: Booster, evalDataset: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], evalName: String," +
+    " evalFunc: EvalTrait) instead", since = "0.7")
   def eval(evalDataset: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], evalName: String, evalFunc: EvalTrait = null,
            iter: Int = -1, useExternalCache: Boolean = false): String = {
     require(evalFunc != null || iter != -1, "you have to specify the value of either eval or iter")
+    if (evalFunc == null) {
+      eval(_booster, evalDataset, evalName, iter)
+    } else {
+      eval(_booster, evalDataset, evalName, evalFunc)
+    }
+  }
+
+  // TODO: refactor to remove duplicate code in two variations of eval()
+  def eval(
+      booster: Booster, evalDataset: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], evalName: String,
+      iter: Int): String = {
     val broadcastBooster = evalDataset.sparkContext.broadcast(_booster)
+    val broadcastUseExternalCache = evalDataset.sparkContext.broadcast($(useExternalMemory))
     val appName = evalDataset.context.appName
     val allEvalMetrics = evalDataset.mapPartitions {
       labeledPointsPartition =>
@@ -88,7 +103,7 @@ abstract class XGBoostModel(_booster: Booster)
           val rabitEnv = Map("DMLC_TASK_ID" -> TaskContext.getPartitionId().toString)
           Rabit.init(rabitEnv.asJava)
           val cacheFileName = {
-            if (useExternalCache) {
+            if (broadcastUseExternalCache.value) {
               s"$appName-${TaskContext.get().stageId()}-$evalName" +
                 s"-deval_cache-${TaskContext.getPartitionId()}"
             } else {
@@ -97,16 +112,44 @@ abstract class XGBoostModel(_booster: Booster)
           }
           import DataUtils._
           val dMatrix = new DMatrix(labeledPointsPartition, cacheFileName)
-          if (iter == -1) {
-            val predictions = broadcastBooster.value.predict(dMatrix)
-            Rabit.shutdown()
-            Iterator(Some((evalName, evalFunc.eval(predictions, dMatrix))))
-          } else {
-            val predStr = broadcastBooster.value.evalSet(Array(dMatrix), Array(evalName), iter)
-            val Array(evName, predNumeric) = predStr.split(":")
-            Rabit.shutdown()
-            Iterator(Some(evName, predNumeric.toFloat))
+          val predStr = broadcastBooster.value.evalSet(Array(dMatrix), Array(evalName), iter)
+          val Array(evName, predNumeric) = predStr.split(":")
+          Rabit.shutdown()
+          Iterator(Some(evName, predNumeric.toFloat))
+        } else {
+          Iterator(None)
+        }
+    }.filter(_.isDefined).collect()
+    val evalPrefix = allEvalMetrics.map(_.get._1).head
+    val evalMetricMean = allEvalMetrics.map(_.get._2).sum / allEvalMetrics.length
+    s"$evalPrefix = $evalMetricMean"
+  }
+
+  def eval(
+      booster: Booster, evalDataset: RDD[MLLabeledPoint], evalName: String,
+      evalFunc: EvalTrait): String = {
+    require(evalFunc != null, "you have to specify the value of either eval or iter")
+    val broadcastBooster = evalDataset.sparkContext.broadcast(booster)
+    val broadcastUseExternalCache = evalDataset.sparkContext.broadcast($(useExternalMemory))
+    val appName = evalDataset.context.appName
+    val allEvalMetrics = evalDataset.mapPartitions {
+      labeledPointsPartition =>
+        if (labeledPointsPartition.hasNext) {
+          val rabitEnv = Map("DMLC_TASK_ID" -> TaskContext.getPartitionId().toString)
+          Rabit.init(rabitEnv.asJava)
+          val cacheFileName = {
+            if (broadcastUseExternalCache.value) {
+              s"$appName-${TaskContext.get().stageId()}-$evalName" +
+                s"-deval_cache-${TaskContext.getPartitionId()}"
+            } else {
+              null
+            }
           }
+          import DataUtils._
+          val dMatrix = new DMatrix(labeledPointsPartition, cacheFileName)
+          val predictions = broadcastBooster.value.predict(dMatrix)
+          Rabit.shutdown()
+          Iterator(Some((evalName, evalFunc.eval(predictions, dMatrix))))
         } else {
           Iterator(None)
         }
@@ -215,8 +258,7 @@ abstract class XGBoostModel(_booster: Booster)
           val testDataset = new DMatrix(vectorIterator, cachePrefix)
           val rawPredictResults = {
             if (!predLeaf) {
-              broadcastBooster.value.predict(testDataset, outputMargin).
-                map(Row(_)).iterator
+              broadcastBooster.value.predict(testDataset, outputMargin).map(Row(_)).iterator
             } else {
               broadcastBooster.value.predictLeaf(testDataset).map(Row(_)).iterator
             }
@@ -284,7 +326,5 @@ abstract class XGBoostModel(_booster: Booster)
     outputStream.close()
   }
 
-  // override protected def featuresDataType: DataType = new VectorUDT
-
   def booster: Booster = _booster
 }
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostRegressionModel.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostRegressionModel.scala
index 7e398ea3d..318f023d1 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostRegressionModel.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostRegressionModel.scala
@@ -16,26 +16,35 @@
 
 package ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark
 
+import scala.collection.mutable
+
 import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.Booster
 import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.{Vector => MLVector}
 import org.apache.spark.ml.param.ParamMap
 import org.apache.spark.ml.util.Identifiable
 import org.apache.spark.sql._
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
-import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{ArrayType, FloatType, StructField, StructType}
+import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{ArrayType, FloatType}
 
-class XGBoostRegressionModel private[spark](override val uid: String, _booster: Booster)
-  extends XGBoostModel(_booster) {
+class XGBoostRegressionModel private[spark](override val uid: String, booster: Booster)
+  extends XGBoostModel(booster) {
 
   def this(_booster: Booster) = this(Identifiable.randomUID("XGBoostRegressionModel"), _booster)
 
+  // only called in copy()
+  def this(uid: String) = this(uid, null)
+
   override protected def transformImpl(testSet: Dataset[_]): DataFrame = {
     transformSchema(testSet.schema, logging = true)
     val predictRDD = produceRowRDD(testSet)
-    testSet.sparkSession.createDataFrame(predictRDD, schema =
-      StructType(testSet.schema.add(StructField($(predictionCol),
-        ArrayType(FloatType, containsNull = false), nullable = false)))
-    )
+    val tempPredColName = $(predictionCol) + "_temp"
+    val transformerForArrayTypedPredCol =
+      udf((regressionResults: mutable.WrappedArray[Float]) => regressionResults(0))
+    testSet.sparkSession.createDataFrame(predictRDD,
+      schema = testSet.schema.add(tempPredColName, ArrayType(FloatType, containsNull = false))
+    ).withColumn(
+      $(predictionCol),
+      transformerForArrayTypedPredCol.apply(col(tempPredColName))).drop(tempPredColName)
   }
 
   override protected def predict(features: MLVector): Double = {
@@ -43,6 +52,8 @@ class XGBoostRegressionModel private[spark](override val uid: String, _booster:
   }
 
   override def copy(extra: ParamMap): XGBoostRegressionModel = {
-    defaultCopy(extra)
+    val regModel = defaultCopy(extra).asInstanceOf[XGBoostRegressionModel]
+    regModel._booster = booster
+    regModel
   }
 }
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/BoosterParams.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/BoosterParams.scala
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..02c57a46e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/BoosterParams.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,150 @@
+/*
+ Copyright (c) 2014 by Contributors
+
+ 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.
+ */
+
+package ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark.params
+
+import scala.collection.immutable.HashSet
+
+import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark.XGBoostEstimator
+import org.apache.spark.ml.param.{DoubleParam, IntParam, Param, Params}
+
+private[spark] trait BoosterParams extends Params {
+  this: XGBoostEstimator =>
+
+  val boosterType = new Param[String](this, "booster",
+    s"Booster to use, options: {'gbtree', 'gblinear', 'dart'}",
+    (value: String) => BoosterParams.supportedBoosters.contains(value.toLowerCase))
+
+  // Tree Booster parameters
+  val eta = new DoubleParam(this, "eta", "step size shrinkage used in update to prevents" +
+    " overfitting. After each boosting step, we can directly get the weights of new features." +
+    " and eta actually shrinks the feature weights to make the boosting process more conservative.",
+    (value: Double) => value >= 0 && value <= 1)
+
+  val gamma = new DoubleParam(this, "gamma", "minimum loss reduction required to make a further" +
+    " partition on a leaf node of the tree. the larger, the more conservative the algorithm will" +
+    " be.", (value: Double) => value >= 0)
+
+  val maxDepth = new IntParam(this, "max_depth", "maximum depth of a tree, increase this value" +
+    " will make model more complex / likely to be overfitting.", (value: Int) => value >= 1)
+
+  val minChildWeight = new DoubleParam(this, "min_child_weight", "minimum sum of instance" +
+    " weight(hessian) needed in a child. If the tree partition step results in a leaf node with" +
+    " the sum of instance weight less than min_child_weight, then the building process will" +
+    " give up further partitioning. In linear regression mode, this simply corresponds to minimum" +
+    " number of instances needed to be in each node. The larger, the more conservative" +
+    " the algorithm will be.", (value: Double) => value >= 0)
+
+  val maxDeltaStep = new DoubleParam(this, "max_delta_step", "Maximum delta step we allow each" +
+    " tree's weight" +
+    " estimation to be. If the value is set to 0, it means there is no constraint. If it is set" +
+    " to a positive value, it can help making the update step more conservative. Usually this" +
+    " parameter is not needed, but it might help in logistic regression when class is extremely" +
+    " imbalanced. Set it to value of 1-10 might help control the update",
+    (value: Double) => value >= 0)
+
+  val subSample = new DoubleParam(this, "subsample", "subsample ratio of the training instance." +
+    " Setting it to 0.5 means that XGBoost randomly collected half of the data instances to" +
+    " grow trees and this will prevent overfitting.", (value: Double) => value <= 1 && value > 0)
+
+  val colSampleByTree = new DoubleParam(this, "colsample_bytree", "subsample ratio of columns" +
+    " when constructing each tree.", (value: Double) => value <= 1 && value > 0)
+
+  val colSampleByLevel = new DoubleParam(this, "colsample_bylevel", "subsample ratio of columns" +
+    " for each split, in each level.", (value: Double) => value <= 1 && value > 0)
+
+  val lambda = new DoubleParam(this, "lambda", "L2 regularization term on weights, increase this" +
+    " value will make model more conservative.", (value: Double) => value >= 0)
+
+  val alpha = new DoubleParam(this, "alpha", "L1 regularization term on weights, increase this" +
+    " value will make model more conservative.", (value: Double) => value >= 0)
+
+  val treeMethod = new Param[String](this, "tree_method",
+    "The tree construction algorithm used in XGBoost, options: {'auto', 'exact', 'approx'}",
+    (value: String) => BoosterParams.supportedTreeMethods.contains(value))
+
+  val sketchEps = new DoubleParam(this, "sketch_eps",
+    "This is only used for approximate greedy algorithm. This roughly translated into" +
+      " O(1 / sketch_eps) number of bins. Compared to directly select number of bins, this comes" +
+      " with theoretical guarantee with sketch accuracy.",
+    (value: Double) => value < 1 && value > 0)
+
+  val scalePosWeight = new DoubleParam(this, "scale_pos_weight", "Control the balance of positive" +
+    " and negative weights, useful for unbalanced classes. A typical value to consider:" +
+    " sum(negative cases) / sum(positive cases)")
+
+  // Dart boosters
+
+  val sampleType = new Param[String](this, "sample_type", "type of sampling algorithm, options:" +
+    " {'uniform', 'weighted'}",
+    (value: String) => BoosterParams.supportedSampleType.contains(value))
+
+  val normalizeType = new Param[String](this, "normalize_type", "type of normalization" +
+    " algorithm, options: {'tree', 'forest'}",
+    (value: String) => BoosterParams.supportedNormalizeType.contains(value))
+
+  val rateDrop = new DoubleParam(this, "rate_drop", "dropout rate", (value: Double) =>
+    value >= 0 && value <= 1)
+
+  val skipDrop = new DoubleParam(this, "skip_drop", "probability of skip dropout. If" +
+    " a dropout is skipped, new trees are added in the same manner as gbtree.",
+    (value: Double) => value >= 0 && value <= 1)
+
+  // linear booster
+  val lambdaBias = new DoubleParam(this, "lambda_bias", "L2 regularization term on bias, default" +
+    " 0 (no L1 reg on bias because it is not important)", (value: Double) => value >= 0)
+
+  setDefault(boosterType -> "gbtree", eta -> 0.3, gamma -> 0, maxDepth -> 6,
+    minChildWeight -> 1, maxDeltaStep -> 0,
+    subSample -> 1, colSampleByTree -> 1, colSampleByLevel -> 1,
+    lambda -> 1, alpha -> 0, treeMethod -> "auto", sketchEps -> 0.03,
+    scalePosWeight -> 0, sampleType -> "uniform", normalizeType -> "tree",
+    rateDrop -> 0.0, skipDrop -> 0.0, lambdaBias -> 0)
+
+  /**
+   * Explains all params of this instance. See `explainParam()`.
+   */
+  override def explainParams(): String = {
+    // TODO: filter some parameters according to the booster type
+    val boosterTypeStr = $(boosterType)
+    val validParamList = {
+      if (boosterTypeStr == "gblinear") {
+        // gblinear
+        params.filter(param => param.name == "lambda" ||
+          param.name == "alpha" || param.name == "lambda_bias")
+      } else if (boosterTypeStr != "dart") {
+        // gbtree
+        params.filter(param => param.name != "sample_type" &&
+          param.name != "normalize_type" && param.name != "rate_drop" && param.name != "skip_drop")
+      } else {
+        // dart
+        params.filter(_.name != "lambda_bias")
+      }
+    }
+    explainParam(boosterType) + "\n" ++ validParamList.map(explainParam).mkString("\n")
+  }
+}
+
+private[spark] object BoosterParams {
+
+  val supportedBoosters = HashSet("gbtree", "gblinear", "dart")
+
+  val supportedTreeMethods = HashSet("auto", "exact", "approx")
+
+  val supportedSampleType = HashSet("uniform", "weighted")
+
+  val supportedNormalizeType = HashSet("tree", "forest")
+}
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/GeneralParams.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/GeneralParams.scala
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a2614c719
--- /dev/null
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/GeneralParams.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+/*
+ Copyright (c) 2014 by Contributors
+
+ 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.
+ */
+
+package ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark.params
+
+import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.{EvalTrait, ObjectiveTrait}
+import org.apache.spark.ml.param._
+
+private[spark] trait GeneralParams extends Params {
+
+  val round = new IntParam(this, "num_round", "The number of rounds for boosting",
+    ParamValidators.gtEq(1))
+
+  val nWorkers = new IntParam(this, "nthread", "number of workers used to run xgboost",
+    ParamValidators.gtEq(1))
+
+  val useExternalMemory = new BooleanParam(this, "use_external_memory", "whether to use external" +
+    "memory as cache")
+
+  val silent = new IntParam(this, "silent",
+    "0 means printing running messages, 1 means silent mode.",
+    (value: Int) => value >= 0 && value <= 1)
+
+  val customObj = new Param[ObjectiveTrait](this, "custom_obj", "customized objective function " +
+    "provided by the user")
+
+  val customEval = new Param[EvalTrait](this, "custom_obj", "customized evaluation function " +
+    "provided by the user")
+
+  val missing = new FloatParam(this, "missing", "the value treated as missing")
+
+  setDefault(round -> 1, nWorkers -> 1, useExternalMemory -> false, silent -> 0,
+    customObj -> null, customEval -> null, missing -> Float.NaN)
+}
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/LearningTaskParams.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/LearningTaskParams.scala
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a1a3180ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/params/LearningTaskParams.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+/*
+ Copyright (c) 2014 by Contributors
+
+ 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.
+ */
+
+package ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark.params
+
+import scala.collection.immutable.HashSet
+
+import org.apache.spark.ml.param.{DoubleParam, Param, Params}
+
+private[spark] trait LearningTaskParams extends Params {
+
+  val objective = new Param[String](this, "objective", "objective function used for training," +
+    s" options: {${LearningTaskParams.supportedObjective.mkString(",")}",
+    (value: String) => LearningTaskParams.supportedObjective.contains(value))
+
+  val baseScore = new DoubleParam(this, "base_score", "the initial prediction score of all" +
+    " instances, global bias")
+
+  val evalMetric = new Param[String](this, "eval_metric", "evaluation metrics for validation" +
+    " data, a default metric will be assigned according to objective (rmse for regression, and" +
+    " error for classification, mean average precision for ranking), options: " +
+    s" {${LearningTaskParams.supportedEvalMetrics.mkString(",")}}",
+    (value: String) => LearningTaskParams.supportedEvalMetrics.contains(value))
+
+  setDefault(objective -> "reg:linear", baseScore -> 0.5)
+}
+
+private[spark] object LearningTaskParams {
+  val supportedObjective = HashSet("reg:linear", "reg:logistic", "binary:logistic",
+    "binary:logitraw", "count:poisson", "multi:softmax", "multi:softprob", "rank:pairwise",
+    "reg:gamma")
+
+  val supportedEvalMetrics = HashSet("rmse", "mae", "logloss", "error", "merror", "mlogloss",
+    "auc", "ndcg", "map", "gamma-deviance")
+}
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/test/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostDFSuite.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/test/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostDFSuite.scala
index 284f99a22..e23fb79b1 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/test/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostDFSuite.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j-spark/src/test/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/spark/XGBoostDFSuite.scala
@@ -16,16 +16,12 @@
 
 package ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.spark
 
-import java.io.File
-
-import scala.collection.mutable
-import scala.collection.mutable.ListBuffer
-import scala.io.Source
-
 import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.java.{DMatrix => JDMatrix}
 import ml.dmlc.xgboost4j.scala.{DMatrix, XGBoost => ScalaXGBoost}
 import org.apache.spark.SparkContext
 import org.apache.spark.ml.feature.LabeledPoint
+import org.apache.spark.ml.linalg.DenseVector
+import org.apache.spark.ml.param.ParamMap
 import org.apache.spark.sql._
 
 class XGBoostDFSuite extends SharedSparkContext with Utils {
@@ -66,13 +62,15 @@ class XGBoostDFSuite extends SharedSparkContext with Utils {
       "id", "features", "label")
     val predResultsFromDF = xgBoostModelWithDF.setExternalMemory(true).transform(testDF).
       collect().map(row =>
-      (row.getAs[Int]("id"), row.getAs[mutable.WrappedArray[Float]]("probabilities"))
+      (row.getAs[Int]("id"), row.getAs[DenseVector]("probabilities"))
     ).toMap
     assert(testDF.count() === predResultsFromDF.size)
+    // the vector length in probabilties column is 2 since we have to fit to the evaluator in
+    // Spark
     for (i <- predResultFromSeq.indices) {
-      assert(predResultFromSeq(i).length === predResultsFromDF(i).length)
+      assert(predResultFromSeq(i).length === predResultsFromDF(i).values.length - 1)
       for (j <- predResultFromSeq(i).indices) {
-        assert(predResultFromSeq(i)(j) === predResultsFromDF(i)(j))
+        assert(predResultFromSeq(i)(j) === predResultsFromDF(i)(j + 1))
       }
     }
     cleanExternalCache("XGBoostDFSuite")
@@ -160,4 +158,29 @@ class XGBoostDFSuite extends SharedSparkContext with Utils {
     assert(predictionDF.columns.contains("final_prediction") === false)
     cleanExternalCache("XGBoostDFSuite")
   }
+
+  test("xgboost and spark parameters synchronize correctly") {
+    val xgbParamMap = Map("eta" -> "1", "objective" -> "binary:logistic")
+    // from xgboost params to spark params
+    val xgbEstimator = new XGBoostEstimator(xgbParamMap)
+    assert(xgbEstimator.get(xgbEstimator.eta).get === 1.0)
+    assert(xgbEstimator.get(xgbEstimator.objective).get === "binary:logistic")
+    // from spark to xgboost params
+    val xgbEstimatorCopy = xgbEstimator.copy(ParamMap.empty)
+    assert(xgbEstimatorCopy.xgboostParams.get("eta").get.toString.toDouble === 1.0)
+    assert(xgbEstimatorCopy.xgboostParams.get("objective").get.toString === "binary:logistic")
+  }
+
+  test("eval_metric is configured correctly") {
+    val xgbParamMap = Map("eta" -> "1", "objective" -> "binary:logistic")
+    val xgbEstimator = new XGBoostEstimator(xgbParamMap)
+    assert(xgbEstimator.get(xgbEstimator.evalMetric).get === "error")
+    val sparkParamMap = ParamMap.empty
+    val xgbEstimatorCopy = xgbEstimator.copy(sparkParamMap)
+    assert(xgbEstimatorCopy.xgboostParams.get("eval_metric") === Some("error"))
+    val xgbEstimatorCopy1 = xgbEstimator.copy(sparkParamMap.put(xgbEstimator.evalMetric, "logloss"))
+    assert(xgbEstimatorCopy1.xgboostParams.get("eval_metric") === Some("logloss"))
+  }
+
+
 }
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/XGBoost.scala b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/XGBoost.scala
index 15f16be51..cb842af72 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/XGBoost.scala
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j/src/main/scala/ml/dmlc/xgboost4j/scala/XGBoost.scala
@@ -45,12 +45,11 @@ object XGBoost {
       watches: Map[String, DMatrix] = Map[String, DMatrix](),
       obj: ObjectiveTrait = null,
       eval: EvalTrait = null): Booster = {
-
-
     val jWatches = watches.map{case (name, matrix) => (name, matrix.jDMatrix)}
     val xgboostInJava = JXGBoost.train(
       dtrain.jDMatrix,
-      params.map{
+      // we have to filter null value for customized obj and eval
+      params.filter(_._2 != null).map{
         case (key: String, value) => (key, value.toString)
       }.toMap[String, AnyRef].asJava,
       round, jWatches.asJava,