LINQ to Entities
LINQ to Entities provides the LINQ support that enables developers to write queries against Entity Framework's conceptual model using Visual Basic or Visual C#. Queries against Entity Framework are represented by command-tree queries, which execute against the object context. LINQ to Entities converts the LINQ queries to the command-tree queries, executes the queries against Entity Framework, and returns objects that can be used by both Entity Framework and LINQ.
LINQ to Entities allows developers to create flexible, strongly typed queries against the conceptual data model, Entity Data Model (EDM), by using the LINQ expressions and standard LINQ query operators.