Deploy workloads in resource-constrained devices at the far edge

August 18, 2025•
Resource type: Datasheet

Bringing workloads to the farthest edge

Red Hat® Device Edge comes equipped with the capabilities needed to deploy and manage edge devices and their workloads at scale. Red Hat build of MicroShift integrates Kubernetes, Red Hat Enterprise Linux®, and Red Hat Ansible® Automation Platform to meet the needs of workloads running in resource-constrained, field-deployed devices. 

Features and benefits

Through this single platform, users can choose the capabilities they need. Users can deploy the operating system (OS) and later add Kubernetes orchestration—using Red Hat build of MicroShift or deploy the OS and Red Hat build of MicroShift simultaneously. In either case, included in Red Hat Device Edge is a new product, Red Hat Edge Manager, for delivering scalable, security-focused fleet management. Edge Manager simplifies the process of managing thousands of edge devices and applications from a single console, improving scalability, security, and operational efficiency.

With Red Hat Device Edge, users benefit from:

  • Workload deployment support in small, resource-constrained devices in challenging environments, like industrial controllers, point of sales terminals, and drones.
  • A smaller platform footprint that preserves device resources for deployed workloads rather than running the device itself.
  • Consistent operations spanning from small edge devices to large IT systems in datacenter and cloud environments.
  • The flexibility to deploy and manage bare-metal, virtual, containerized, or Kubernetes workloads. 

Table 1. Platform and edge-specific capabilities

Platform

Capability

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Customizable OS image generation

Allows IT teams the ability to create purpose-built OS images through image builder. The images are optimized for various edge architectures and customizable for compact edge deployments.

Efficient over-the-air updates

Transfers significantly less data, since only the difference between software versions is transmitted for remote sites with limited or intermittent connectivity. This allows each install to happen during scheduled downtime or when device owners choose to apply them.

Transactional updates with Intelligent rollbacks

Updates are staged to the edge device and applied in a transactional “all-or-nothing” approach. 
Customizable health checks help detect issues and automatically revert an update, preventing downtime, which is important when devices are in locations with limited accessibility or specialized, on-site IT teams (e.g., oil rigs and satellites).

Red Hat build of MicroShift

Cluster services

  • Containers: Red Hat Device Edge provides all of the standard Kubernetes application programming interfaces (APIs) and services for container orchestration, using cri-o as the container runtime.
  • Networking: As a Container Network Interface (CNI) driver, Red Hat Device Edge uses Open Virtual Network-Kubernetes (OVN-Kubernetes), which is also used by Red Hat OpenShift®.
  • Ingress: Red Hat Device Edge carries over both the ingress controller and Red Hat OpenShift Route API to simplify exposing a service at a host name.
  • Storage: Red Hat Device Edge comes bundled with the logical volume manager (LVM) storage and Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver to provide advanced storage capacities like thin provisioning or volumes snapshots with local storage from the edge devices.
  • Security: MicroShift inherits the security stance of OpenShift, with Security Context Constraints and similar mechanisms to isolate and protect the workload and system.

Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Certified Kubernetes distribution

Red Hat build of MicroShift is a CNCF certified distribution of Kubernetes, providing a consistent Kubernetes API to provide operational consistency across hybrid cloud deployments (public, on-premise, hybrid, edge, or any combination). 

Application portability

Red Hat build of MicroShift extends Kubernetes to the farthest reaches of the edge, allowing applications to perform where they are most needed—from core, to cloud, to edge.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Ansible® Content Collections available in Ansible automation hub (console.redhat.com) and private automation hub

Two validated Ansible Content Collections are available in Ansible automation hub to support rpm-ostree images and Red Hat build of MicroShift lifecycle use cases at scale:

  1. edge.microshift1 collection: To build rpm-ostree-based images to run, configure, and upgrade Red Hat build of MicroShift and deploy Kubernetes workloads on Red Hat build of MicroShift
  2. infra.osbuild collection: To provide the automation content needed to build an osbuild server, an Apache HTTP Server to host images, and a role to build installer images and rpm-ostree updates.

These components allow users to build rpm-ostree-based images.

Red Hat Device Edge technical specifications

Two buying options

  1. Red Hat Device Edge includes:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux® performing as the edge-optimized OS.
  • Red Hat build of MicroShift is a lightweight, Kubernetes-based container orchestration derived from Red Hat OpenShift and focused on minimizing user footprint.
  • Ansible Automation Platform is used to manage Day 1 device deployments and Day 2 ongoing platform and workload operations.
  • SKUs:
    • MW02577 (Premium)
    • MW02581 (Standard)
  1. Red Hat Device Edge Essentials includes:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux performing as the edge-optimized OS.
  • Red Hat build of MicroShift is a lightweight, Kubernetes-based container orchestration derived from Red Hat OpenShift and focused on minimizing user footprint.
  • SKUs:
    • MW02240 (Premium)
    • MW02241 (Standard)

Resource requirements

  • Deployments using Red Hat Enterprise Linux have minimum system requirements of 1 CPU core, 1.5 GB RAM (3 GB for network installations), and 10 GB disk.
  • Deployments with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat build of MicroShift have minimum requirements of 2 CPU cores and 2 GB of RAM.

Learn more

For more information, visit Red Hat Device Edge.

Tags:Edge computing