diff --git a/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/client/VersionsSuite.scala b/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/client/VersionsSuite.scala
index c6d034a23a1c6f2e0c56fa90a358150389a4a1dd..7bc13bc60d30e8763ac2b020a3cb9898df357be4 100644
--- a/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/client/VersionsSuite.scala
+++ b/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/client/VersionsSuite.scala
@@ -36,10 +36,12 @@ import org.apache.spark.util.Utils
 @ExtendedHiveTest
 class VersionsSuite extends SparkFunSuite with Logging {
 
-  // Do not use a temp path here to speed up subsequent executions of the unit test during
-  // development.
-  private val ivyPath = Some(
-    new File(sys.props("java.io.tmpdir"), "hive-ivy-cache").getAbsolutePath())
+  // In order to speed up test execution during development or in Jenkins, you can specify the path
+  // of an existing Ivy cache:
+  private val ivyPath: Option[String] = {
+    sys.env.get("SPARK_VERSIONS_SUITE_IVY_PATH").orElse(
+      Some(new File(sys.props("java.io.tmpdir"), "hive-ivy-cache").getAbsolutePath))
+  }
 
   private def buildConf() = {
     lazy val warehousePath = Utils.createTempDir()