what is the output of this one?

sp_readerrorlog 0,1,'licensing'

and
select @@version

Pretty sure of that also - and some questions from that were not answered - and eventually the solution is easy but not what the OP wishes to be given.

your VM guy is right. shutdown guest does not always issue a clean shutdown.

For these type of situations is normally good to have prepared in advance a powershell...

ahh.. forgot about this detail and didn't thought of asking about it.

Resource Governor only available on the Enterprise Edition and as far as I am aware there is...

Without knowing db sizes, usage and load on the current server as well as what their customers do with the server its hard to tell you which is better.

Not really aware of it but maybe related to the fact that the latest version for 2015 had issues deploying to SSIS catalog, mainly when deploying single packages.

in...

Didn't mention this one as this is...

get sp_whoisactive and run it while the lock is happening
http://whoisactive.com/downloads/

best to do it when you manually run the proc manually as at the point you know...

Don't use SSIS for that as it sucks with LOB types.

Powershell or C#  (can be inside a SSIS package script task if you prefer) with a sql reader...

no ties - within each sqn the ldts are unique

did you find out your self or did you find something on the net? 

We have a similar problem on our shop at the moment.

Thanks

As mentioned before Microsoft or vendor should always be consulted.

But on this case the licensing documents are pretty clear.
From the Licensing Guide on the link above

try expanding the connections tab on the left - the DBA ones would normally be on the bottom of it