diff --git a/opencontrail/files/4.0/database/cassandra-env.sh b/opencontrail/files/4.0/database/cassandra-env.sh
index 7f2145c..e3ad874 100644
--- a/opencontrail/files/4.0/database/cassandra-env.sh
+++ b/opencontrail/files/4.0/database/cassandra-env.sh
@@ -93,13 +93,14 @@
 jvmver=`echo "$java_ver_output" | grep '[openjdk|java] version' | awk -F'"' 'NR==1 {print $2}'`
 JVM_VERSION=${jvmver%_*}
 JVM_PATCH_VERSION=${jvmver#*_}
+COMPARE_CMD="dpkg --compare-versions"
 
-if [ "$JVM_VERSION" -lt "1.7" ] ; then
+if $COMPARE_CMD "$JVM_VERSION" lt "1.7"  ; then
     echo "Cassandra 2.0 and later require Java 7u25 or later."
     exit 1;
 fi
 
-if [ "$JVM_VERSION" -lt "1.8" ] && [ "$JVM_PATCH_VERSION" -lt "25" ] ; then
+if $COMPARE_CMD "$JVM_VERSION" lt "1.8"  && $COMPARE_CMD "$JVM_PATCH_VERSION" lt "25" ; then
     echo "Cassandra 2.0 and later require Java 7u25 or later."
     exit 1;
 fi
@@ -229,7 +230,7 @@
 JVM_OPTS="$JVM_OPTS -XX:CMSWaitDuration=10000"
 
 # note: bash evals '1.7.x' as > '1.7' so this is really a >= 1.7 jvm check
-if { [ "$JVM_VERSION" -gt "1.7" ] && [ "$JVM_VERSION" -lt "1.8.0" ] && [ "$JVM_PATCH_VERSION" -ge "60" ]; } || [ "$JVM_VERSION" -gt "1.8" ] ; then
+if { $COMPARE_CMD "$JVM_VERSION" gt "1.7" && $COMPARE_CMD "$JVM_VERSION" lt "1.8.0" && $COMPARE_CMD "$JVM_PATCH_VERSION" ge "60" ; } || $COMPARE_CMD "$JVM_VERSION" gt "1.8" ; then
     JVM_OPTS="$JVM_OPTS -XX:+CMSParallelInitialMarkEnabled -XX:+CMSEdenChunksRecordAlways -XX:CMSWaitDuration=10000"
 fi