Quiesce is used to describe pausing or altering the state of running processes on a computer, particularly those that might modify information stored on disk

Hard disk

A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...

 during a backup

Backup

In information technology, a backup or the process of backing up is making copies of data which may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is back up in two words, whereas the noun is backup....

, in order to guarantee a consistent and usable backup. This generally requires flushing any outstanding writes, see buffering.

In addition, the term "quiesce" is used in telecom applications, whereby callers into a system can finish their call but no new callers are permitted.

Various database and application vendors implement schemes to provide support for this feature including:

• Symantec's Livestate - now includes a quiesce process, as does VMware's VI3 snapshot and VCB features. Symantec supports Exchange and SQL.

• VMware support - IO system

• IBM DB2 supports a Quiesce command that is used to indicate a state for which all users have been locked out of a database or an instance (of databases) so that administrative tasks can be performed. See DB2 Quiesce Command

• IBM DB2 for z/OS, OS/390 and IBM i Operating System has a utility command called QUIESCE, used in order to make it write all data belonging to a certain database (a logical entity in a DB2 subsystem) from the buffers, helping utility programs get DRAIN access on the datasets quickly.

• IBM DB2 for z/OS and OS/390 also supports a command SET LOG SUSPEND that technically speaking, stops it from writing to the log, in fact freezing any database activity (except for most queries). This mode is used sometimes for snapshot type backup schemes, thus only lasting for less than a second, ensuring backed up data is in a consistent state. This command is reversed with a SET LOG RESUME command.

• A graceful shutdown of WebSphere MQ is called quiescing. See Quiescing MQ.

• ORACLE also supports a Quiesce command since version 9i which allows existing users to continue to use resources but disallows new resources being made available. See Oracle High Availability Features

• SYBASE ASE 12.0 and above support a QUIESCE DATABASE command that prevents any process from running commands that write to the transaction log. The primary purpose is to stop all update activity so the database files can be copied or backed up using OS level utilities. While the database is quiesced, it is still available to users for read-only queries. See http://manuals.sybase.com/onlinebooks/group-as/asg1251e/sag/@Generic__BookView;pt=72438?DwebQuery=quiesce+database

• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/2010 support a QUIESCE or QUIESCE FROM TEMPLATE (2010) option within the Central Administration operations window. This allows an administrator to stop the server farm from accepting new user connections and gradually brings any long-running applications offline without causing data loss. Microsoft's Dez also uses this terminology.

• JADE Object Oriented Database system can perform a quiesced backup with the parameter 'quiesced=true'. The database is placed in a quiescent state by allowing current active transactions to complete and then flushing modified buffers from cache to the stable database. See http://www.jadeworld.com/StdDocument/dbadmin/dbadmin-online.html#onlinequiesced_admindb. During a quiesced backup, updating transactions are not permitted and attempts to execute database transactions raise a database exception.