SharePoint uses action states in SPObjectStatus

An action state is a state that indicates that an action is being performed.  The SPObjectStatus used by the SPPersistedObject.Status has three such states Provisioning, Unprovisioning, and Upgrading this allows SPPersistedObjects to undergo long running operations.  Here is a quick summary of all the states:

Name	Meaning	Details
Disabled	OFF	New or fully removed object
Online	ON	Object fully setup
Provisioning	Action State	Moving to ON
Unprovisioning	Action State	Moving to OFF
Upgrading	Action State	Changing object versions
Offline	FAILED	Your dead

One of the major misconceptions with new SharePoint developers is that ON and OFF are really Online and Offline, but they are not. ON and OFF are represented by Online and Disabled.  Offline has the same meaning it does in SQLServer. Your object is dead beyond use.  This is data corruption, hardware failure, network failure, etc.

SharePoint maps the Provisioning and Unprovisioning states differently depending on the object.  Here are some examples:

Object	Provisioning	Unprovisioning
SPWindowsServerInstance	Starting	Stopping
SPSolution	Deploying	Retracting
SPDatabase	Creating	Dropping

It is best practice to code any custom SPPersistedObjects to set the Provisioning and Unprovisioning action states correctly.  Particularly if your Provision and Unprovision methods are long running.