The present disclosure describes a plurality of examples for federating a cluster from a plurality of interconnected computing nodes. The examples disclose a controller receiving network information and enclosure information associated with the computing nodes. The network information is indicative of a network topology between the computing nodes. The enclosure information is indicative of a configuration of an enclosure associated with a corresponding computing node. The controller identifies fault domains based on the network information and the enclosure information. Each fault domain of the fault domains includes one or more computing nodes impacted by at least one of a corresponding network fault event or a corresponding enclosure fault event, and the plurality of fault domains comprise first, second, and third fault domains. The controller selects computing nodes from the fault domains for federating the cluster. The selected computing nodes comprise a first computing node from the first fault domain and a second computing node from the second fault domain. The selecting of the computing nodes favors selecting the first computing node from the first fault domain with a smaller quantity of computing nodes over the third fault domain with a larger quantity of computing nodes. The controller allocates the selected computing nodes in federating the cluster to execute workloads.