Enterprise management tools such as application provisioning and rapid deployment software should help improve the current ratio, Dully said. But he added that using virtualization technology to increase server utilization, which the health care provider is exploring, may lower the support ratios because it increases system complexity.

Larry Buettner, CIO at Wheels Inc., a Des Plaines, Ill.-based transportation fleet leasing firm, has four technicians managing 120 servers and doesn't see that ratio changing for the next five years. Buettner said he does expect the systems administration parts of a technician's job to decrease. But he thinks there will be an increase in the amount of work related to administering third-party software and networks. Tools for automating those tasks are still in the early development stages, according to Buettner.

After listening to Hurd's speech, Gartner Inc. analyst Carl Claunch said the push for more automation is an industrywide phenomenon. But, he said, it will take three to four years for most data centers to begin to realize higher server management ratios, because they are "burdened with lots of legacy."

Rich Ptak, an analyst at Ptak, Noel & Associates in Amherst, N.H., said HP's long-term belief that one data center technician will be able to manage 200 servers is realistic. "IT is on the cusp of applying all the power of IT that was directed outside its operations to its internal operations," Ptak said. He added, though, that HP will have to extend its OpenView line of management tools and develop software for managing dynamic IT environments in order to make such automation feasible.

-- Reporter Matt Hamblen contributed to this story.