diff --git a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/BroadcastTest.scala b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/BroadcastTest.scala
index 973049b95a7bd..f49a96edb94df 100644
--- a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/BroadcastTest.scala
+++ b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/BroadcastTest.scala
@@ -28,11 +28,9 @@ object BroadcastTest {
     val bcName = if (args.length > 2) args(2) else "Http"
     val blockSize = if (args.length > 3) args(3) else "4096"
 
-    System.setProperty("spark.broadcast.factory", "org.apache.spark.broadcast." + bcName +
-      "BroadcastFactory")
-    System.setProperty("spark.broadcast.blockSize", blockSize)
     val sparkConf = new SparkConf().setAppName("Broadcast Test")
-
+      .set("spark.broadcast.factory", s"org.apache.spark.broadcast.${bcName}BroaddcastFactory")
+      .set("spark.broadcast.blockSize", blockSize)
     val sc = new SparkContext(sparkConf)
 
     val slices = if (args.length > 0) args(0).toInt else 2
diff --git a/tools/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/tools/StoragePerfTester.scala b/tools/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/tools/StoragePerfTester.scala
index db58eb642b56d..15ee95070a3d3 100644
--- a/tools/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/tools/StoragePerfTester.scala
+++ b/tools/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/tools/StoragePerfTester.scala
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ import java.util.concurrent.{CountDownLatch, Executors}
 import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong
 
 import org.apache.spark.executor.ShuffleWriteMetrics
-import org.apache.spark.SparkContext
+import org.apache.spark.{SparkConf, SparkContext}
 import org.apache.spark.serializer.KryoSerializer
 import org.apache.spark.shuffle.hash.HashShuffleManager
 import org.apache.spark.util.Utils
@@ -49,13 +49,13 @@ object StoragePerfTester {
     val writeData = "1" * recordLength
     val executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(numMaps)
 
-    System.setProperty("spark.shuffle.compress", "false")
-    System.setProperty("spark.shuffle.sync", "true")
-    System.setProperty("spark.shuffle.manager",
-      "org.apache.spark.shuffle.hash.HashShuffleManager")
+    val conf = new SparkConf()
+      .set("spark.shuffle.compress", "false")
+      .set("spark.shuffle.sync", "true")
+      .set("spark.shuffle.manager", "org.apache.spark.shuffle.hash.HashShuffleManager")
 
     // This is only used to instantiate a BlockManager. All thread scheduling is done manually.
-    val sc = new SparkContext("local[4]", "Write Tester")
+    val sc = new SparkContext("local[4]", "Write Tester", conf)
     val hashShuffleManager = sc.env.shuffleManager.asInstanceOf[HashShuffleManager]
 
     def writeOutputBytes(mapId: Int, total: AtomicLong) = {