@KJK 

Thanks for the link and I will certainly take a look at everything.  I think I understand enough about Layer 2 and MAC addresses and deduced that broadcasts are probably used to discover any switches.  What really got my curiosity was that the utility was able to change the IP address of a switch whose IP was in a different subnet.  Using only a MAC address, how did the utility communicate with the switch if an IP protocol is not used?  Is there a back door?  Some special protocol?  I have seen that other manufacturers (such as Netgear) have similar utilities and probably work in the same manner.