Edge computing environments present distinct hurdles as companies move processing capabilities nearer to where data is generated. Customers across industries, especially in retail, industrial, and telecommunications sectors, are increasingly demanding high availability for their edge deployments.However, achieving high availability traditionally requires a three-node cluster to establish a reliable quorum. The primary factor driving organizations toward alternative topologies for large-scale edge deployments is the prohibitive cost of powering, maintaining, and deploying a third node across hundreds or thousands of sites—a motivation that has only grown stronger in light of the recent steep increase in hardware prices. To address this demand, we are introducing Red Hat OpenShift topologies targeting two nodes for edge deployments. While two-node OpenShift with arbiter offers a path that uses a small arbiter device to maintain quorum, it technically remains a three-node architecture. For cost-sensitive customers who require a strict, localized two-node footprint, Red Hat now offers two-node OpenShift with fencing. With the release of version 4.22 of OpenShift, two-node OpenShift with fencing is now generally available.Two-node OpenShift with fencing architectureTwo-node OpenShift with fencing is a true two-node solution designed from the ground up for edge environments. Currently supported exclusively on x86 bare-metal platforms, two-node OpenShift with fencing also fully supports Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, allowing teams to run both containerized and virtualized workloads on a minimal footprint.Figure 1 provides an architectural overview of a two-node OpenShift with fencing deployment: