Eh... well, let's take networking as an example: I would make sure that the ports and access IPs are narrowed to the minimum necessary, I would seggregate networkings per service using vlans, implement a vpn... I mean, it really depends what we are talking about... is this a web server? Is this an internal authentication system? is it a DB? And about automation, it also depends what kind of server it is to tell what could be automated.