diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES-HDFS-EC-7285.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES-HDFS-EC-7285.txt
index b850e117b8a..97492702216 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES-HDFS-EC-7285.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES-HDFS-EC-7285.txt
@@ -42,3 +42,5 @@
     ( Kai Zheng via vinayakumarb )
   
     HADOOP-11818. Minor improvements for erasurecode classes. (Rakesh R via Kai Zheng)
+
+    HADOOP-11841. Remove unused ecschema-def.xml files.  (szetszwo)
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/conf/ecschema-def.xml b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/conf/ecschema-def.xml
deleted file mode 100644
index e36d38650e4..00000000000
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/conf/ecschema-def.xml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,35 +0,0 @@
-<?xml version="1.0"?>
-
-<!--
- 
- Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
- or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
- distributed with this work for additional information
- regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
- to you 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.
-
--->
-
-<!--
-Please define your EC schemas here. Note, once these schemas are loaded
-and referenced by EC storage policies, any change to them will be ignored.
-You can modify and remove those not used yet, or add new ones.
--->
-
-<schemas>
-  <schema name="RS-10-4">
-    <k>10</k>
-    <m>4</m>
-    <codec>RS</codec>
-  </schema>
-</schemas>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/CommonConfigurationKeys.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/CommonConfigurationKeys.java
index 8a5211a70bb..bd2a24b0220 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/CommonConfigurationKeys.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/CommonConfigurationKeys.java
@@ -143,11 +143,6 @@ public class CommonConfigurationKeys extends CommonConfigurationKeysPublic {
   /** Supported erasure codec classes */
   public static final String IO_ERASURECODE_CODECS_KEY = "io.erasurecode.codecs";
 
-  public static final String IO_ERASURECODE_SCHEMA_FILE_KEY =
-      "io.erasurecode.schema.file";
-  public static final String IO_ERASURECODE_SCHEMA_FILE_DEFAULT =
-      "ecschema-def.xml";
-
   /** Use XOR raw coder when possible for the RS codec */
   public static final String IO_ERASURECODE_CODEC_RS_USEXOR_KEY =
       "io.erasurecode.codec.rs.usexor";
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/erasurecode/SchemaLoader.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/erasurecode/SchemaLoader.java
index 75dd03a0652..9b10c781827 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/erasurecode/SchemaLoader.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/erasurecode/SchemaLoader.java
@@ -17,20 +17,27 @@
  */
 package org.apache.hadoop.io.erasurecode;
 
-import org.slf4j.Logger;
-import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
-import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
-import org.apache.hadoop.fs.CommonConfigurationKeys;
-import org.w3c.dom.*;
-import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
+import java.io.File;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.net.URL;
+import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.Collections;
+import java.util.HashMap;
+import java.util.List;
+import java.util.Map;
 
 import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
 import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
 import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
-import java.io.File;
-import java.io.IOException;
-import java.net.URL;
-import java.util.*;
+
+import org.slf4j.Logger;
+import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
+import org.w3c.dom.Document;
+import org.w3c.dom.Element;
+import org.w3c.dom.Node;
+import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
+import org.w3c.dom.Text;
+import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
 
 /**
  * A EC schema loading utility that loads predefined EC schemas from XML file
@@ -42,8 +49,8 @@ public class SchemaLoader {
    * Load predefined ec schemas from configuration file. This file is
    * expected to be in the XML format.
    */
-  public List<ECSchema> loadSchema(Configuration conf) {
-    File confFile = getSchemaFile(conf);
+  public List<ECSchema> loadSchema(String schemaFilePath) {
+    File confFile = getSchemaFile(schemaFilePath);
     if (confFile == null) {
       LOG.warn("Not found any predefined EC schema file");
       return Collections.emptyList();
@@ -100,10 +107,7 @@ public class SchemaLoader {
    * Path to the XML file containing predefined ec schemas. If the path is
    * relative, it is searched for in the classpath.
    */
-  private File getSchemaFile(Configuration conf) {
-    String schemaFilePath = conf.get(
-        CommonConfigurationKeys.IO_ERASURECODE_SCHEMA_FILE_KEY,
-        CommonConfigurationKeys.IO_ERASURECODE_SCHEMA_FILE_DEFAULT);
+  private File getSchemaFile(String schemaFilePath) {
     File schemaFile = new File(schemaFilePath);
     if (! schemaFile.isAbsolute()) {
       URL url = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader()
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/erasurecode/TestSchemaLoader.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/erasurecode/TestSchemaLoader.java
index 7bb0a9a1218..6caeedb3b47 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/erasurecode/TestSchemaLoader.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/io/erasurecode/TestSchemaLoader.java
@@ -17,16 +17,14 @@
  */
 package org.apache.hadoop.io.erasurecode;
 
-import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
-import org.apache.hadoop.fs.CommonConfigurationKeys;
-import org.junit.Test;
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
 
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.FileWriter;
 import java.io.PrintWriter;
 import java.util.List;
 
-import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
+import org.junit.Test;
 
 public class TestSchemaLoader {
 
@@ -54,12 +52,8 @@ public class TestSchemaLoader {
     out.println("</schemas>");
     out.close();
 
-    Configuration conf = new Configuration();
-    conf.set(CommonConfigurationKeys.IO_ERASURECODE_SCHEMA_FILE_KEY,
-        SCHEMA_FILE);
-
     SchemaLoader schemaLoader = new SchemaLoader();
-    List<ECSchema> schemas = schemaLoader.loadSchema(conf);
+    List<ECSchema> schemas = schemaLoader.loadSchema(SCHEMA_FILE);
 
     assertEquals(2, schemas.size());