Define a "private" server, log data and export data - by: Peloso

Hi there,
I'm a newbie in the OPC UA. I'm a mechanical engineer actually, but I'm down with my master thesis and I'm looking for a smart solution to some data manipulation. The goal is to take some data from a PLC and, as written in the subject, I want to define some kind of protect connection in a OPC UA server, log data with specific tags and then export and manipulate them. I look at the documentation provided in the site, but I just can put all the things I need together.

PS:
I want to use the OPC UA protocol because I just believe in it and... it's something new that the research world in my specific field is not using that much.
Can you help me on that?

I'm hoping on a feedback guys, I can't go any further with what I know.