diff --git a/multi-node/README.md b/multi-node/README.md
index 02d6fc820..1c388d8bc 100644
--- a/multi-node/README.md
+++ b/multi-node/README.md
@@ -1,38 +1,36 @@
 Distributed XGBoost
 ======
-This folder contains information about experimental version of distributed xgboost.
+This folder contains information of Distributed XGBoost.
 
-Build
-=====
-* In the root folder, run ```make```, this will give you xgboost, which uses rabit allreduce
-  - this version of xgboost should be fault tolerant eventually
-* Alterniatively, run ```make mpi```, this will give you xgboost-mpi
-  - You will need to have MPI to build xgboost-mpi
-
-Design Choice
-=====
-* XGBoost replies on [Rabit Library](https://github.com/tqchen/rabit)
-* Rabit is an fault tolerant and portable allreduce library that provides Allreduce and Broadcast
-* Since rabit is compatible with MPI, xgboost can be compiled using MPI backend
-
-* How is the data distributed?
-  - There are two solvers in distributed xgboost
-  - Column-based solver split data by column, each node work on subset of columns, 
-    it uses exactly the same algorithm as single node version.
-  - Row-based solver split data by row, each node work on subset of rows,
-    it uses an approximate histogram count algorithm, and will only examine subset of 
-    potential split points as opposed to all split points.
-  - Hadoop version can run on the existing hadoop platform,
-    it use Rabit to submit jobs as map-reduce tasks.
+* The distributed version is built on Rabit:[Reliable Allreduce and Broadcast Library](https://github.com/tqchen/rabit)
+  - Rabit is a portable library that provides fault-tolerance for Allreduce calls for distributed machine learning  
+  - This makes xgboost portable and fault-tolerant against node failures
+* You can run Distributed XGBoost on common platforms that rabit can port to,
+  including Hadoop(see [hadoop folder](hadoop)) and MPI
 
 Usage
+=====
+* In the root folder, run ```./build.sh```, this will give you xgboost, which uses rabit allreduce
+
+Notes
 ====
-* You will need a network filesystem, or copy data to local file system before running the code
-* xgboost can be used together with submission script provided in Rabit on different possible types of job scheduler
-* ***Note*** The distributed version is still multi-threading optimized.
-    You should run one process per node that takes most available CPU,
-    this will reduce the communication overhead and improve the performance.
-   - One way to do that is limit mpi slot in each machine to be 1, or reserve nthread processors for each process.
-* Examples:
-  - [Column-based version](col-split)
-  - [Row-based version](row-split)
+* Rabit handles all the fault tolerant and communications efficiently, we only use platform specific command to start programs
+  - The Hadoop version does not rely on Mapreduce to do iterations
+  - You can expect xgboost not suffering the drawbacks of iterative MapReduce program
+* The design choice was made because Allreduce is very natural and efficient for distributed tree building
+  - In current version of xgboost, the distributed version is only adds several lines of Allreduce synchronization code
+* The multi-threading nature of xgboost is inheritated in distributed mode
+  - This means xgboost efficiently use all the threads in one machine, and communicates only between machines
+  - Remember to run on xgboost process per machine and this will give you maximum speedup
+* For more information about rabit and how it works, see the [tutorial](https://github.com/tqchen/rabit/tree/master/guide)
+
+Solvers
+=====
+There are two solvers in distributed xgboost. You can check for local demo of the two solvers, see [row-split](row-split) and [col-split](col-split)
+  * Column-based solver split data by column, each node work on subset of columns, 
+    it uses exactly the same algorithm as single node version.
+  * Row-based solver split data by row, each node work on subset of rows,
+    it uses an approximate histogram count algorithm, and will only examine subset of 
+    potential split points as opposed to all split points.
+    - This is the mode used by current hadoop version, since usually data was stored by rows in many industry system
+    
diff --git a/multi-node/col-split/README.md b/multi-node/col-split/README.md
index 4f0d07b27..3ea0799fe 100644
--- a/multi-node/col-split/README.md
+++ b/multi-node/col-split/README.md
@@ -4,8 +4,6 @@ Distributed XGBoost: Column Split Version
   - mushroom-col-rabit.sh starts xgboost job using rabit's allreduce
 * run ```bash mushroom-col-rabit-mock.sh <n-process>```
   - mushroom-col-rabit-mock.sh starts xgboost job using rabit's allreduce, inserts suicide signal at certain point and test recovery
-* run ```bash mushroom-col-mpi.sh <n-mpi-process>```
-  - mushroom-col.sh starts xgboost-mpi job
 
 How to Use
 ====
diff --git a/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col-mpi.sh b/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col-mpi.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index 4d7de9892..000000000
--- a/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col-mpi.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,24 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]
-then
-    echo "Usage: nprocess"
-    exit -1
-fi
-
-rm -rf train.col* *.model
-k=$1
-
-# split the lib svm file into k subfiles
-python splitsvm.py ../../demo/data/agaricus.txt.train train $k
-
-# run xgboost mpi
-mpirun -n $k ../../xgboost-mpi mushroom-col.conf dsplit=col
-
-# the model can be directly loaded by single machine xgboost solver, as usuall
-../../xgboost mushroom-col.conf task=dump model_in=0002.model fmap=../../demo/data/featmap.txt name_dump=dump.nice.$k.txt
-
-# run for one round, and continue training
-mpirun -n $k ../../xgboost-mpi mushroom-col.conf dsplit=col num_round=1
-mpirun -n $k ../../xgboost-mpi mushroom-col.conf dsplit=col model_in=0001.model
-
-cat dump.nice.$k.txt
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col-python.sh b/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col-python.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index 8551ee465..000000000
--- a/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col-python.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,22 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]
-then
-    echo "Usage: nprocess"
-    exit -1
-fi
-
-#
-# This script is same as mushroom-col except that we will be using xgboost python module
-# 
-# xgboost used built in tcp-based allreduce module, and can be run on more enviroment, so long as we know how to start job by modifying ../submit_job_tcp.py
-#
-rm -rf train.col* *.model
-k=$1
-
-# split the lib svm file into k subfiles
-python splitsvm.py ../../demo/data/agaricus.txt.train train $k
-
-# run xgboost mpi
-../../rabit/tracker/rabit_mpi.py $k local python mushroom-col.py
-
-cat dump.nice.$k.txt
diff --git a/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col.py b/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col.py
deleted file mode 100644
index a905aff5c..000000000
--- a/multi-node/col-split/mushroom-col.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,33 +0,0 @@
-import os
-import sys
-path = os.path.dirname(__file__)
-if path == '':
-    path = '.'
-sys.path.append(path+'/../../wrapper')
-
-import xgboost as xgb
-# this is example script of running distributed xgboost using python
-
-# call this additional function to intialize the xgboost sync module
-# in distributed mode
-xgb.sync_init(sys.argv)
-rank = xgb.sync_get_rank()
-# read in dataset
-dtrain = xgb.DMatrix('train.col%d' % rank)
-param = {'max_depth':3, 'eta':1, 'silent':1, 'objective':'binary:logistic' }
-param['dsplit'] = 'col'
-nround = 3
-
-if rank == 0:
-    dtest = xgb.DMatrix('../../demo/data/agaricus.txt.test')
-    model = xgb.train(param, dtrain, nround, [(dtrain, 'train') , (dtest, 'test')])
-else:
-    # if it is a slave node, do not run evaluation
-    model = xgb.train(param, dtrain, nround)
-
-if rank == 0:
-    model.save_model('%04d.model' % nround)
-    # dump model with feature map
-    model.dump_model('dump.nice.%d.txt' % xgb.sync_get_world_size(),'../../demo/data/featmap.txt')
-# shutdown the synchronization module
-xgb.sync_finalize()
diff --git a/multi-node/row-split/README.md b/multi-node/row-split/README.md
index 46656644d..30e2528d3 100644
--- a/multi-node/row-split/README.md
+++ b/multi-node/row-split/README.md
@@ -1,10 +1,8 @@
 Distributed XGBoost: Row Split Version
 ====
+* You might be interested to checkout the [Hadoop example](../hadoop)
 * Machine Rabit: run ```bash machine-row-rabit.sh <n-mpi-process>```
   - machine-col-rabit.sh starts xgboost job using rabit
-* Mushroom: run ```bash mushroom-row-mpi.sh <n-mpi-process>```
-* Machine: run ```bash machine-row-mpi.sh <n-mpi-process>```
-  - Machine case also include example to continue training from existing model
 
 How to Use
 ====
diff --git a/multi-node/row-split/machine-row-map.sh b/multi-node/row-split/machine-row-map.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index a1c5bfe0c..000000000
--- a/multi-node/row-split/machine-row-map.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,20 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]
-then
-    echo "Usage: nprocess"
-    exit -1
-fi
-
-rm -rf train-machine.row* *.model
-k=$1
-# make machine data
-cd ../../demo/regression/
-python mapfeat.py
-python mknfold.py machine.txt 1
-cd -
-
-# split the lib svm file into k subfiles
-python splitrows.py ../../demo/regression/machine.txt.train train-machine $k
-
-# run xgboost mpi, take data from stdin
-../submit_job_tcp.py $k "bash map.sh train-machine.row ../../xgboost machine-row.conf dsplit=row num_round=3 data=stdin"
diff --git a/multi-node/row-split/machine-row-mpi.sh b/multi-node/row-split/machine-row-mpi.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index fdb1f1d6b..000000000
--- a/multi-node/row-split/machine-row-mpi.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,24 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]
-then
-    echo "Usage: nprocess"
-    exit -1
-fi
-
-rm -rf train-machine.row* *.model
-k=$1
-# make machine data
-cd ../../demo/regression/
-python mapfeat.py
-python mknfold.py machine.txt 1
-cd -
-
-# split the lib svm file into k subfiles
-python splitrows.py ../../demo/regression/machine.txt.train train-machine $k
-
-# run xgboost mpi
-mpirun -n $k ../../xgboost-mpi machine-row.conf dsplit=row num_round=3
-
-# run xgboost-mpi save model 0001, continue to run from existing model
-mpirun -n $k ../../xgboost-mpi machine-row.conf dsplit=row num_round=1
-mpirun -n $k ../../xgboost-mpi machine-row.conf dsplit=row num_round=2 model_in=0001.model
diff --git a/multi-node/row-split/map.sh b/multi-node/row-split/map.sh
deleted file mode 100644
index 624192121..000000000
--- a/multi-node/row-split/map.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
-# a simple script to simulate mapreduce mapper
-echo "cat $1$OMPI_COMM_WORLD_RANK | ${@:2}"
-cat $1$OMPI_COMM_WORLD_RANK | ${@:2}
diff --git a/multi-node/row-split/mushroom-row-mpi.sh b/multi-node/row-split/mushroom-row-mpi.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index eb65799b6..000000000
--- a/multi-node/row-split/mushroom-row-mpi.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,19 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]
-then
-    echo "Usage: nprocess"
-    exit -1
-fi
-
-rm -rf train.row* *.model
-k=$1
-
-# split the lib svm file into k subfiles
-python splitrows.py ../../demo/data/agaricus.txt.train train $k
-
-# run xgboost mpi
-mpirun -n $k ../../xgboost-mpi mushroom-row.conf dsplit=row nthread=1 
-
-# the model can be directly loaded by single machine xgboost solver, as usuall
-../../xgboost mushroom-row.conf task=dump model_in=0002.model fmap=../../demo/data/featmap.txt name_dump=dump.nice.$k.txt
-cat dump.nice.$k.txt
diff --git a/multi-node/row-split/mushroom-row.conf b/multi-node/row-split/mushroom-row.conf
deleted file mode 100644
index 4cc2e8b11..000000000
--- a/multi-node/row-split/mushroom-row.conf
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,35 +0,0 @@
-# General Parameters, see comment for each definition
-# choose the booster, can be gbtree or gblinear
-booster = gbtree
-# choose logistic regression loss function for binary classification
-objective = binary:logistic
-
-# Tree Booster Parameters
-# step size shrinkage
-eta = 1.0 
-# minimum loss reduction required to make a further partition
-gamma = 1.0 
-# minimum sum of instance weight(hessian) needed in a child
-min_child_weight = 1 
-# maximum depth of a tree
-max_depth = 3 
-
-# Task Parameters
-# the number of round to do boosting
-num_round = 2
-# 0 means do not save any model except the final round model
-save_period = 0 
-use_buffer = 0
-
-# The path of training data %d is the wildcard for the rank of the data
-# The idea is each process take a feature matrix with subset of columns
-#
-data = "train.row%d" 
-
-# The path of validation data, used to monitor training process, here [test] sets name of the validation set
-eval[test] = "../../demo/data/agaricus.txt.test" 
-# evaluate on training data as well each round
-eval_train = 1
-
-# The path of test data, need to use full data of test, try not use it, or keep an subsampled version
-test:data = "../../demo/data/agaricus.txt.test"      
diff --git a/wrapper/xgboost.py b/wrapper/xgboost.py
index d351928dc..cf442a61f 100644
--- a/wrapper/xgboost.py
+++ b/wrapper/xgboost.py
@@ -33,10 +33,6 @@ xglib.XGBoosterCreate.restype = ctypes.c_void_p
 xglib.XGBoosterPredict.restype = ctypes.POINTER(ctypes.c_float)
 xglib.XGBoosterEvalOneIter.restype = ctypes.c_char_p
 xglib.XGBoosterDumpModel.restype = ctypes.POINTER(ctypes.c_char_p)
-# sync function
-xglib.XGSyncGetRank.restype = ctypes.c_int
-xglib.XGSyncGetWorldSize.restype = ctypes.c_int
-# initialize communication module
 
 def ctypes2numpy(cptr, length, dtype):
     """convert a ctypes pointer array to numpy array """
@@ -557,17 +553,3 @@ def cv(params, dtrain, num_boost_round = 10, nfold=3, metrics=[], \
         results.append(res)
     return results
 
-# synchronization module
-def sync_init(args = sys.argv):
-    arr = (ctypes.c_char_p * len(args))()
-    arr[:] = args
-    xglib.XGSyncInit(len(args), arr)
-    
-def sync_finalize():
-    xglib.XGSyncFinalize()
-
-def sync_get_rank():
-    return int(xglib.XGSyncGetRank())
-
-def sync_get_world_size():
-    return int(xglib.XGSyncGetWorldSize())
diff --git a/wrapper/xgboost_wrapper.cpp b/wrapper/xgboost_wrapper.cpp
index 700356ade..432ae0bf2 100644
--- a/wrapper/xgboost_wrapper.cpp
+++ b/wrapper/xgboost_wrapper.cpp
@@ -82,23 +82,6 @@ class Booster: public learner::BoostLearner {
 using namespace xgboost::wrapper;
 
 extern "C"{
-  void XGSyncInit(int argc, char *argv[]) {
-    rabit::Init(argc, argv);
-    if (rabit::GetWorldSize() != 1) {
-      std::string pname = rabit::GetProcessorName();
-      utils::Printf("distributed job start %s:%d\n", pname.c_str(), rabit::GetRank());
-    }
-  }
-  void XGSyncFinalize(void) {
-    rabit::Finalize();
-  }
-  int XGSyncGetRank(void) {
-    int rank = rabit::GetRank();
-    return rank;
-  }
-  int XGSyncGetWorldSize(void) {
-    return rabit::GetWorldSize();
-  }
   void* XGDMatrixCreateFromFile(const char *fname, int silent) {
     return LoadDataMatrix(fname, silent != 0, false);
   }