It turns out that looping_call does check the deferred returned by its
callback, and (at least in the case of client_ips), we were relying on this,
and I broke it in #3604.
Update run_as_background_process to return the deferred, and make sure we
return it to clock.looping_call.
This introduces a mechanism for tracking resource usage by background
processes, along with an example of how it will be used.
This will help address #3518, but more importantly will give us better insights
into things which are happening but not being shown up by the request metrics.
We *could* do this with Measure blocks, but:
- I think having them pulled out as a completely separate metric class will
make it easier to distinguish top-level processes from those which are
nested.
- I want to be able to report on in-flight background processes, and I don't
think we want to do this for *all* Measure blocks.
Patrick Cloke