LINQ to SQL provides a nice, clean way to model the data layer of your application.  Once you've defined your data model you can easily and efficiently perform queries, inserts, updates and deletes against it. 

Using the built-in LINQ to SQL designer within Visual Studio and Visual Web Developer Express you can create and manage your data models for LINQ to SQL extremely fast.  The LINQ to SQL designer also provides a lot of flexibility that enables you to customize the default behavior and override/extend the system to meet your specific needs.

In upcoming posts I'll be using the data model we created above to drill into querying, inserts, updates and deletes further.  In the update, insert and delete posts I'll also discuss how to add custom business/data validation logic to the entities we designed above to perform additional validation logic.

Mike Taulty also has a number of great LINQ to SQL videos that I recommend checking out here.  These provide a great way to learn by watching someone walkthrough using LINQ to SQL in action.

Hope this helps,

Scott