A method for traffic engineering on an optical transport network, OTN, comprising network elements implementing asymmetric OTN switches, said method comprising discovering by each network element of said network ODUk containers available on each of locally terminated traffic engineering, TE, links and identifying the switching limitations of the discovered ODUk containers with respect to how said ODUk containers are switchable onto the ODUk containers available on other locally terminated TE links; identifying by said network element groups of ODUk containers available on a given TE link exhibiting identical switching limitations; negotiating by said network element with its neighboring network elements properties of to be advertised child TE links each associated with a separate ODUk group; and advertising by said network element for each identified group of ODUk containers a separate child TE link parallel to the original parent TE link, wherein each advertised child TE link indicates the total number of available ODUk containers within the respective ODUk group along with the identified switching limitations exhibited by the ODUk containers of said ODUk group and wherein the re-advertised parent TE link indicates the number of available ODUk containers reduced to account for the ODUk containers associated with the separately advertised child TE links.