I plan to start a website for classified ads. For the database back-end, where should I get database server? Any recommendations on what company does database server hosting? Or should I have my own database server? I probably will use MySQL for my database, Apache for web server. Who offers web server, email server and database hosting all together?

Thanks for sharing your experience!

almost any host will do that for you. I personally use liquidweb and have used them for about 3 yrs... they have specific packages that include db server... I actually signed up for one of them.
Good luck!