diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index a6772d2c..7c97ec5d 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@
     <gitRepositoryName>jenkins-sonar-plugin</gitRepositoryName>
     <version.artifactory.plugin>2.4.1</version.artifactory.plugin>
     <jenkins.version>1.580.3</jenkins.version>
-    <java.level>6</java.level>
+    <java.level>7</java.level>
     <findbugs.failOnError>false</findbugs.failOnError>
   </properties>
 
@@ -124,6 +124,11 @@
   </pluginRepositories>
 
   <dependencies>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>org.sonarsource.sonarqube</groupId>
+      <artifactId>sonar-ws</artifactId>
+      <version>5.6-RC1</version>
+    </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <!-- needed for SonarPublisher -->
       <groupId>org.jenkins-ci.main</groupId>
diff --git a/src/main/java/hudson/plugins/sonar/client/HttpClient.java b/src/main/java/hudson/plugins/sonar/client/HttpClient.java
index af0b6f3f..2ca5aee6 100644
--- a/src/main/java/hudson/plugins/sonar/client/HttpClient.java
+++ b/src/main/java/hudson/plugins/sonar/client/HttpClient.java
@@ -18,33 +18,22 @@
  */
 package hudson.plugins.sonar.client;
 
-import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
 import org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils;
-
-import com.google.common.base.Charsets;
-
-import java.io.InputStream;
-import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
-import java.net.URL;
-import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import org.sonarqube.ws.client.GetRequest;
+import org.sonarqube.ws.client.HttpConnector;
+import org.sonarqube.ws.client.WsResponse;
 
 public class HttpClient {
-  public String getHttp(String urlToRead, String username, String password) throws Exception {
-    URL url = new URL(urlToRead);
-    HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
-
-    if (!StringUtils.isEmpty(username)) {
-      // to support authentication tokens
-      String userpass = username + ":";
-      if (!StringUtils.isEmpty(password)) {
-        userpass = userpass + password;
-      }
-      String basicAuth = "Basic " + javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(userpass.getBytes(Charsets.UTF_8));
-      conn.setRequestProperty("Authorization", basicAuth);
-    }
+  public String getHttp(String url, String usernameOrToken, String password) throws Exception {
+    String baseUrl = StringUtils.substringBeforeLast(url, "/");
+    String path = StringUtils.substringAfterLast(url, "/");
+    HttpConnector httpConnector = HttpConnector.newBuilder()
+      .userAgent("Scanner for Jenkins")
+      .url(baseUrl)
+      .credentials(usernameOrToken, password)
+      .build();
+    WsResponse response = httpConnector.call(new GetRequest(path));
+    return response.content();
 
-    conn.setRequestMethod("GET");
-    InputStream is = conn.getInputStream();
-    return IOUtils.toString(is, Charsets.UTF_8.name());
   }
 }