Understanding hosts and nodes

When talking about hosts and nodes, although their first impression might drive us towards thinking that they are the same thing, in fact, they are not! The difference between hosts and nodes is that while all hosts can be nodes, not every node can act as a host. That way, to every host an IP address is assigned. So, a host is any device with an IP address that requests or provides networking resources to any other host or node on the network. However, there are devices such as hubs, bridges, switches, modems, and access points that have no IP address assigned, but are still used for communication. That said, a node is any device that can generate, receive, and transmit the networking resources on a computer network, and as such it has no communication interface with an IP address. Based on that, in Figure 1.5, the server, smartphone, PC, and laptop are acting as hosts in a network, while the switch and access point (AP) act as nodes.