diff --git a/rest-testing/pom.xml b/rest-testing/pom.xml
index bd3133df3b..a789c57816 100644
--- a/rest-testing/pom.xml
+++ b/rest-testing/pom.xml
@@ -15,7 +15,13 @@
             <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
             <version>${guava.version}</version>
         </dependency>
-
+        
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
+            <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
+            <version>2.4</version>
+        </dependency>
+        
         <dependency>
             <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
             <artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
@@ -35,6 +41,14 @@
             <version>${httpcore.version}</version>
         </dependency>
 
+        <!-- marshalling -->
+
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
+            <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
+            <version>${jackson.version}</version>
+        </dependency>
+
         <!-- logging -->
 
         <dependency>
@@ -125,11 +139,9 @@
     <properties>
         <!-- Spring -->
         <org.springframework.version>4.0.0.RELEASE</org.springframework.version>
-        <org.springframework.security.version>3.2.0.RELEASE</org.springframework.security.version>
 
-        <!-- persistence -->
-        <hibernate.version>4.3.0.Final</hibernate.version>
-        <mysql-connector-java.version>5.1.27</mysql-connector-java.version>
+        <!-- marshalling -->
+        <jackson.version>2.3.0</jackson.version>
 
         <!-- logging -->
         <org.slf4j.version>1.7.5</org.slf4j.version>
diff --git a/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/ConvertUtil.java b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/ConvertUtil.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a8b325d9a0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/ConvertUtil.java
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+package org.baeldung.rest;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
+import com.google.common.base.Preconditions;
+
+public class ConvertUtil {
+
+    public static <T> String convertResourceToJson(final T resource) throws IOException {
+        Preconditions.checkNotNull(resource);
+
+        return new ObjectMapper().writeValueAsString(resource);
+    }
+
+    public static <T> T convertJsonToResource(final String json, final Class<T> clazzOfResource) throws IOException {
+        Preconditions.checkNotNull(json);
+        Preconditions.checkNotNull(clazzOfResource);
+
+        return new ObjectMapper().readValue(json, clazzOfResource);
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/GitHubUser.java b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/GitHubUser.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..73c9677377
--- /dev/null
+++ b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/GitHubUser.java
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+package org.baeldung.rest;
+
+public class GitHubUser {
+
+    private String login;
+
+    public GitHubUser() {
+        super();
+    }
+
+    // API
+
+    public String getLogin() {
+        return login;
+    }
+
+    public void setLogin(final String login) {
+        this.login = login;
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/GithubBasicLiveTest.java b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/GithubBasicLiveTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..acac82c8f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/GithubBasicLiveTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+package org.baeldung.rest;
+
+import static org.apache.commons.lang3.RandomStringUtils.randomAlphabetic;
+import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.equalTo;
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertThat;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+
+import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
+import org.apache.http.HttpStatus;
+import org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException;
+import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
+import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpUriRequest;
+import org.apache.http.entity.ContentType;
+import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClientBuilder;
+import org.hamcrest.Matchers;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+public class GithubBasicLiveTest {
+
+    // simple request - response
+
+    @Test
+    public void givenUserDoesNotExists_whenUserInfoIsRetrieved_then404IsReceived() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
+        // Given
+        final String name = randomAlphabetic(8);
+        final HttpUriRequest request = new HttpGet("https://api.github.com/users/" + name);
+
+        // When
+        final HttpResponse httpResponse = HttpClientBuilder.create().build().execute(request);
+
+        // Then
+        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine().getStatusCode(), equalTo(HttpStatus.SC_NOT_FOUND));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void givenRequestWithNoAcceptHeader_whenRequestIsExecuted_thenDefaultResponseContentTypeIsJson() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
+        // Given
+        final String jsonMimeType = "application/json";
+        final HttpUriRequest request = new HttpGet("https://api.github.com/users/eugenp");
+
+        // When
+        final HttpResponse response = HttpClientBuilder.create().build().execute(request);
+
+        // Then
+        final String mimeType = ContentType.getOrDefault(response.getEntity()).getMimeType();
+        assertEquals(jsonMimeType, mimeType);
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void givenUserExists_whenUserInformationIsRetrieved_thenRetrievedResourceIsCorrect() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
+        // Given
+        final HttpUriRequest request = new HttpGet("https://api.github.com/users/eugenp");
+
+        // When
+        final HttpResponse response = HttpClientBuilder.create().build().execute(request);
+
+        // Then
+        final GitHubUser resource = RetrieveUtil.retrieveResourceFromResponse(response, GitHubUser.class);
+        assertThat("eugenp", Matchers.is(resource.getLogin()));
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/HttpClientBasicLiveTest.java b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/HttpClientBasicLiveTest.java
deleted file mode 100644
index bc0702118d..0000000000
--- a/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/HttpClientBasicLiveTest.java
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,85 +0,0 @@
-package org.baeldung.rest;
-
-import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.equalTo;
-import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.notNullValue;
-import static org.junit.Assert.assertThat;
-
-import java.io.IOException;
-import java.io.InputStream;
-
-import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
-import org.apache.http.HttpStatus;
-import org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException;
-import org.apache.http.client.methods.CloseableHttpResponse;
-import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
-import org.apache.http.entity.ContentType;
-import org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient;
-import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClientBuilder;
-import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;
-import org.junit.After;
-import org.junit.Before;
-import org.junit.Test;
-
-public class HttpClientBasicLiveTest {
-
-    private static final String SAMPLE_URL = "http://www.github.com";
-
-    private CloseableHttpClient instance;
-
-    private CloseableHttpResponse response;
-
-    @Before
-    public final void before() {
-        instance = HttpClientBuilder.create().build();
-    }
-
-    @After
-    public final void after() throws IllegalStateException, IOException {
-        if (response == null) {
-            return;
-        }
-
-        try {
-            final HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
-            if (entity != null) {
-                final InputStream instream = entity.getContent();
-                instream.close();
-            }
-        } finally {
-            response.close();
-        }
-    }
-
-    // tests
-
-    // simple request - response
-
-    @Test
-    public final void whenExecutingBasicGetRequest_thenNoExceptions() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
-        response = instance.execute(new HttpGet(SAMPLE_URL));
-    }
-
-    @Test
-    public final void givenGetRequestExecuted_whenAnalyzingTheResponse_thenCorrectStatusCode() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
-        response = instance.execute(new HttpGet(SAMPLE_URL));
-        final int statusCode = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
-        assertThat(statusCode, equalTo(HttpStatus.SC_OK));
-    }
-
-    @Test
-    public final void givenGetRequestExecuted_whenAnalyzingTheResponse_thenCorrectMimeType() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
-        response = instance.execute(new HttpGet(SAMPLE_URL));
-        final String contentMimeType = ContentType.getOrDefault(response.getEntity()).getMimeType();
-
-        assertThat(contentMimeType, equalTo(ContentType.TEXT_HTML.getMimeType()));
-    }
-
-    @Test
-    public final void givenGetRequestExecuted_whenAnalyzingTheResponse_thenCorrectBody() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
-        response = instance.execute(new HttpGet(SAMPLE_URL));
-        final String bodyAsString = EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity());
-
-        assertThat(bodyAsString, notNullValue());
-    }
-
-}
diff --git a/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/RetrieveUtil.java b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/RetrieveUtil.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..61506d4ba4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/rest-testing/src/test/java/org/baeldung/rest/RetrieveUtil.java
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+package org.baeldung.rest;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+
+import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
+import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
+
+import com.google.common.base.Preconditions;
+
+public class RetrieveUtil {
+
+    public static String retrieveJsonFromResponse(final HttpResponse response) throws IOException {
+        Preconditions.checkNotNull(response);
+
+        return IOUtils.toString(response.getEntity().getContent());
+    }
+
+    public static <T> T retrieveResourceFromResponse(final HttpResponse response, final Class<T> clazz) throws IOException {
+        Preconditions.checkNotNull(response);
+        Preconditions.checkNotNull(clazz);
+
+        final String jsonFromResponse = retrieveJsonFromResponse(response);
+        return ConvertUtil.convertJsonToResource(jsonFromResponse, clazz);
+    }
+
+}