Brightspot's Background Tasks tool, as the name implies, lists all miscellaneous tasks (as well as periodic caches) that your instance of Brightspot has running in the background. These tasks might be back-end Brightspot tasks or those related to integrations that a Brightspot instance has configured. Having all of them listed out in a centralized location helps developers understand what tasks are running, when they last ran, and perhaps most importantly, their last exception (which can serve as an indicator if an error is discovered). Every task can be paused, resumed, or stopped altogether at the developer's discretion.
As for periodic caches, maybe there's a piece of data that a developer wants to calculate every five seconds—but it can be expensive to do so. With a tool like this, a developer can run that calculation behind the scenes and store the result in memory. Because it's on a cycle, as the data in the database changes, the value will refresh and remain reasonably up to date. Without the Background Tasks tool, developers would likely rely on logging statements that come with the system they're using; however, this can be a little removed from the developer. Not an issue for developers working with Brightspot, though, thanks to this tool. A developer can get a quick overview in a centralized location. Speaking of, if a developer happens to be in Brightspot and needs to check background tasks, this is also possible to do inside the CMS in the Developer menu.