There is no longer an option in the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration page to "quiesce farm" as there was in SharePoint 2007.
Stsadm commands article
To quiesce SharePoint 2010, run this stsadm command: stsadm -o quiescefarm -maxduration n
To unquiesce SharePoint 2010, run this stsadm command: stsadm -o unquiescefarm
Brooks, will these two commands quiesce a 2013 Farm also? To quiesce SharePoint 2010, run this stsadm command: stsadm -o quiescefarm -maxduration n To unquiesce SharePoint 2010, run this stsadm command: stsadm -o unquiescefarm thanks, Doug
Thanks so much for commenting, Doug! Yes, these command will work on a SharePoint 2013 farm. I just tested these successfully on my test server. According to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621084(v=office.15).aspx, there is no equivalent in PowerShell to the QuiesceFarm and QuiesceFarmStatus commands used in stsadm.exe. As an extra precaution, I would test these commands in your TEST environment to ensure they do what you expect them to.