Systems and methods are provided for cooling electronic equipment in a data center. Ambient air is vertically circulated from a workspace across a plurality of rack-mounted electronic devices. The electronic devices are located in a plurality of trays such that each tray has a major plane that is substantially parallel to a side plane of the rack. The circulated air is cooled with a heat exchanger that is connected to a vertical end of the rack via a sealed interface. Multiple racks can be arrayed in a distributed cooling arrangement, which increases reliability and scalability of the data center.